Persecution Complex
by Reaper81609
Summary: Everything happens for a reason in this universe, so why not in another, well in a time after the Great War, a strike team of Spartan IV's will soon find out.
1. Chapter 1

Persecution Complex Ch. 1

** AN: Alright I have been dying to do an ME/Halo cross-over for some time being as how my Halo and ME stories are the most popular ones I have out there and love both the series, yes I was a little confused by the ME3 Ending but saw where they were going with it, but also because, as compared to what people believe, I actually have quite an extent of knowledge for both universes. It's been hard thinking about how I'm gonna do this but I'll see where it goes from here.**

** Also to all my other fans I know I haven't put out many updates for a while now but my computer, overstatedly so, was near exploding point when it decided to give me the finger so as you can imagine losing all my work, unfinished, in the process of being made, ideas, etc… did not sit too well with me and only up till recently have I gotten a new one. So without further ado, here goes nothing.**

**EDIT: Read dis and listen! chapter four, which is in the works, is where the real beginning of the plot kicks off if you wanna skip all this intro mumbo-jumbo. it'll still probably be a little slow but i apologize, i'm trying here.  
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** Disclaimer; I own nothing, both franchises belong to Bungie, Bioware, and soon 343, God only knows how incomplete I would be without these series.**

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><p>August 24, 2589 CE; 36 years after the destruction of the Ark and end of the Great War.<p>

A pelican gracefully landed on the re-terraformed planet Reach near an open field where, from a distance, a mother and her daughter watched from a new famrstead as tall armor-clad figures jumped out as well as two creatures who would have been feared were it over thirty years ago.

"Mommy who are they," the small girl asked as she tugged on her stunned mothers skirt. The woman stared in shock at the five figures that walked toward a small bunker with weapons held at their sides.

"Those are Spartan's dear. Without them we may have never…survived the Great War," she refrained from using the word 'won' because with number of losses, the death toll for both sides, all the sacrifices, it was impossible to really say there was a set in stone winner.

"Why have I never seen one before?" the girl asked ever so innocently as they watched the warriors raise their weapons and charge into the bunker, there had been insurrectionist uprisings again surprisingly, though even more so that there were still Spartans.

"Honey, I was a child during the Great War, I only ever saw one, or really only ever heard of one. And he was the Master Chief," the mother said.

The girl looked interested as she looked down at the bunker where, despite the likeliness of gunshots going off, there was complete silence. "Then what were the others?" she asked as most parents in these days would rather have their children avoid the alien life that previously threatened their existence. But the girl would still know what an elite was, and soon what one looked like.

"Those my child, those were Sangheili, elites, I pray they keep their distance," the mother said as the girl now looked back at the bunker with mixed emotion.

It was not long before Vlad, Ellenor, Sloan, Drex, and Thealon walked out of the bunker with the rebel leader in tow. Each of them, save Drex and Thealon, were Spartan IV's, picked specifically because of their genetics, attitude, and whatever else they had tested for. At the age of six they were sought out and were asked to join the program, with either parents consent, or volunteers from orphanages. Why would mother and father abandon child, why would a child who probably doesn't know what they're getting themselves into say yes, to keep the peace.

Course there were some who, at first, just wanted to be famous like the Chief, one such example was Sloan, quickly realized there was more to it than that when it came to the Spartan program. The Spartan IV's were supposed to be equal to or better than the Spartan II's, and with upgraded Mjolnir VIII combat armor it made them so if only slightly. But what a lot of people wondered, was what about the Spartan III's, no one ever heard of them, not till the Spartan program that was.

None of them realized just how important the III's were, without them they may have lost the war, without one in particular the Master Chief would never have left Reach, never found the Halo Rings, never would have stopped the Covenant. He was part of an elite squad called Noble team, all sacrificed themselves at the Battle of Reach, but he, Noble Six, had made sure the Pillar of Autumn had gotten off the ground in the first place, but he had most likely died afterwards, almost every other person had, Spartans included.

And as Vlad walked back to the shuttle thinking this, his foot hit something and he looked down to see something sticking out of the dirt. He tilted his head in wonder and curiosity, reaching down and pulling the object out of the ground. It was old, he could tell that much, he brushed the dirt off of it and saw that it was a helmet, an old GUNGIR helmet used by…Spartan III's, most well know for one in particular.

Vlad ran his finger through the shattered hole that was once a black tinted visor, he turned it over in his hands and saw two digits that made him stare for a full five seconds.

N6.

He let a small smile splay across his face and saluted the fallen warrior, he looked up and saw Sloan and Ellenor staring at him in confusion, Drex and Thealon carrying the rebel leader to the shuttle.

"You okay there Vlad?" Ellenor asked cautiously.

"Yeah, everything's fine…just found something I think you guys might like," he said walking forward and handing the helmet to them. They looked at the helmet and then him in confusion. "Just trust me," Vlad said and Sloan shrugged.

"Alright let's see what your little fuss is all about…" he said looking at the helmet, though Ellenor was holding it they both got just as good of a look at the model, the cracked visor, and finally when they turned it over, the N6.

"No way," Ellenor stated quietly in amazement.

"Guess he did fall with Reach," Sloan said looking out around the landscape. There was nothing around to assume this was a battleground, but it being glassed and then re-terraformed it was hard to say.

"I think he deserves a proper burial, lets bring it back, I think there are quite a few people who will get a kick out of this," Vlad said and the others nodded before they walked to the shuttle, Drex and Thealon waiting.

Both were Sangheili, and all three of the Spartans had respect for the duo's skills, Drex was a lieutenant who loved to sport his father's ultra armor from the war. He was a fairly skilled pilot as well as warrior on the battlefield and well known for being one of the two survivors of a crash on a world called Frultia, the other being Thealon. But what made the crash such a feat was that there was a hostile race of aliens who had shot down the ship, a cruiser no less, and proceeded to kill off the survivors of the crash.

The race was not space faring but they did have weapons, slightly savage gear like the Jiralhanae, but not quite as savage. To the aliens regret they underestimated the will and power of a Sangheili strike force who knew they had nothing to lose. Drex, Thealon and all the survivors of the crash, about forty other Sangheili, twenty-four Kig-Yar, and ten Jiralhanae, though not popular among crews there were some willing to help, had risen against the alien species and made it to a power complex.

They took the complex and shut down all planetary defenses after sending out a beacon warning ships to avoid the planet and advising them that the team would most likely never make it out but to honor their sacrifice. They held out for a full year before a ship had come and found them still holding out at the complex, they were rescued and the aliens were now checked upon yearly to make sure they never became space faring and if they did to make sure they would never try to cause another war.

But Drex'Yulta and Rioc'Thealon had been the only ones left, they had however erected a monument in the dead crews honor and sent the remains to their respected families, even the brutes, respectively the Jiralhanae.

Thealon, was a Field Marshal who, in all the Spartans opinion, was one of the best tacticians they had ever saw and could probably take all three of them at once if he so chose to. As stated he was one the only other survivor of the crash of Frultia but was also well know for one of the battles at the end of the Great War. He had been a temporary Fleet Master, though it was not much of a fleet, six ships in total, he had lost all five other ships, each one taking out about eight Jiralhanae ships before falling, he had held out and destroyed almost the entire Jiralhanae fleet before they retreated.

He had always downplayed himself for the losses of the ships, even though the odds were 18 to one ships and he still managed to push the Jiralhanae back despite those odds. But he had stepped down from being a Fleet Master again stating, "It was better to be in charge of a squad of Sangheili rather than a fleet of ships of them, at least if you went down you didn't take such a large portion of your race down with you."

"What took you three?" Thealon asked rather calmly, he was not well known for impatience either.

"We were just honoring the fallen, think it's something you'd understand," Sloan said as the three walked passed the elites.

"Something I know all too well," Thealon responded quietly as he fell into line beside Ellenor. Vlad smiled as the two of them talked as they walked up the ramp, he swore those two had something more than just a sister brother thing going on, whether they knew it or not.

He heard Drex give a huff of amusement, "You notice it too?" he asked as he leaned against the shuttles walls with his arms crossed. Vlad shrugged as Drex pushed off the wall and they walked up the ramp as it slowly closed and the ship began to rise.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with it, interspecies relationships aren't unheard of," Vlad said as the two of them walked into the armory to return their weapons. "Besides, if they enjoy each others company then why not let them be together," he added placing his assault rifle back on its rack.

"Maybe so, but the last thing we need it Thealon and Ellenor's heads clouded in the midst of battle," Drex said putting his plasma repeater in his locker and closing it. "Nor does it make it any less…strange."

"Well I can see how you think that, but you know, strange things happen, eventually the planet will stop spinning or the sun will go supernova, it's all part of the strange thing called the universe."

"Yes, well the universe has an odd way of bringing things together it would seem."

"It all happens for a reason," Vlad said, "It all happens for a reason."

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><p>2183 CE; One month after the battle of the Citadel<p>

John Shepard sat quietly on the crew deck of the Normandy, a cup of coffee in front of him that he left alone save swirling a spoon lazily around in it. It had been a month since the attack on the Citadel, Shepard had saved the Council and asari flagship the Destiny Ascension, but at the loss of quite a few human ships. Shepard had hunted down and killed the turian Spectre gone rogue, Saren Arterius, at the Citadel and soon after the ship Sovereign had also been destroyed, the battle had been one.

But they had also learned of the Reapers, a race of sentient starships that returned every 50,000 years and eradicated all advanced life for reasons unknown. And, as according to Sovereign, their time was quickly approaching.

Shepard sighed, "Will it ever end?" he asked aloud when suddenly alarms began to sound. Shepard shot up and ran to the stairs, it was the fastest way to his cabin, "Joker what the hell is going on!" he demanded.

"We got unknown hostiles on our six, they just appeared out of nowhere," was his response.

"Geth?"

"Negative, something else."

Shepard quickly donned his armor and ran down the stairs to the CIC, then the first his struck, the Normandy shook violently as the shot cut clear through the ship.

"Holy shit! They just tore through our kinetic barriers, rerouting power to defenses and life support," Shepard heard Joker over the comm.

Shepard ran to the communications panel and began to prep the distress beacon. "Shepard!" he heard a female voice call him, it was Liara, he put on his helmet as the beacon was ready to broadcast.

"The beacon is ready for launch," he said turning to her, the screams of dying crew members stung at his ears like the fire raging around them.

"Will the Alliance get here in time?" Liara asked, Shepard was about to respond when a massive explosion sent her into Shepard, who caught her and turned as the screen behind him cut out in a storm of static.

"Don't worry," he said and grabbed a fire extinguisher, "The Alliance won't abandon us. We just need to hold on. Get everyone to the escape shuttles," he said tossing it to her.

"Joker's still in the cockpit, he won't evacuate," Liara said trying to put out a flame.

_Shit, just like Joker to try and go down with the ship,_ Shepard thought as he tried to repair a panel that had blown off.

"And I'm not leaving either," she said looking back at him and after a moment tossed the fire extinguisher aside realizing how futile an effort it was.

Shepard paused, "Liara, get to the shuttles, now isn't the time to argue, please," he said grabbing her arm and she looked into his visor. "I'll get Joker out of here, just go, get who you can out," Shepard said.

Liara looked at him for a long moment before another explosion behind them snapped her out of her gaze, "Shepard…" she said as he walked back to fix another panel.

"Liara, please…go," he said desperately. She stood there a moment before nodding and running back to round up everyone he could. Shepard stood still also realizing this could be it.

"No! No it's not," he said defiantly and slammed the panel closed before hitting the holoscreen and activating the beacon.

Another explosion rocked the ship and Shepard turned as he heard escape shuttles launching, hopefully the miniature stealth fields on the shuttles would be strong enough to elude the attacking ships sensors. He ran to go get Joker.

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><p><strong>AN: sorry if this is off to a sketchy start but i promise i'll try to make it a bit better in the future, i kinda lost where i was going or how i was gonna do this about halfway through, just think of this as something of a prologue alright. i'm certain there are 500% better x-overs than this so far but just trust me a bit, anyway please leave me a review if you're interested i'm sure some of you might not be but that's to be expected.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

Persecution Complex Ch. 2

** AN: Thank you everyone that reviewed, it's actually more appreciated than you may think. I know it was something of an…uninteresting start and I am fully aware of that but as I said I'll try to do my best to make this an interesting story to read. And as to Iggy-The-Crazy-Bunny, I see where you're going with and I just have to tell you, don't worry, I'm not planning on having Tali recite the book of John or anything like that, just don't worry, as much as I love and follow (insert followed religion here) I'm no crazy nut-job fanatic. So thanks for waiting through this and enjoy.**

** Thank you to all the people who have added and reviewed this story it is greatly, greatly appreciated.**

** Disclaimer: you know the drill.**

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><p>October 30, 2590 CE; 14 months after last catalogue<p>

Thealon paced the bridge with his hand over his jaws as the ship sat in dock F-12 on the _Iridescent_, a docking station in the Ferias Epsilon system after receiving an encrypted message from the human military group known as ONI. It had stated that upon receiving the message they are to make their way directly to the _Iridescent_ where they would meet several ONI personnel in person.

Upon request Thealon had asked, as Ship master of his vessel, an older Covenant CPV-Destroyer class vessel. Though an older model it was the most advanced ship to date, equipped with multiple point-defense pulse laser turrets, _three_ plasma torpedo launchers, one energy projector, eight pods of a dozen archer missiles, Javelin nuclear warheads, and a MAC cannon. Some hush, hush tech they had gotten was active camouflage technology for the ship that also came with standard/upgraded radar jamming, access to Forerunner studied shields, and an experimental weapon they had yet to test. It also had been on the receiving end of any other/more Forerunner tech successfully tested in the field, which is what this meeting was most likely about.

But back to what he was thinking, upon request he had asked if his squad, Drex, Vlad, Sloan, and Ellenor could accompany him to the meeting, they had only allowed two others if truly necessary. With ONI? They better believe it was necessary.

Thealon had picked Vlad and Drex to come with him. As much as he had wanted Ellenor to accompany him, Vlad was the ground leader and it was better not to telegraph a Spartans presence, in the company of two Sangheili, they wouldn't attract as much attention ironically enough.

But…while having the most advanced ship in the entire galaxy had it's advantages, Spartan IV's, all previously stated items, yada yada. When you docked at a mostly civilian populated space station, your presence was known the instant you entered the system. Thealon had thought long and hard but had decided that it was the best for safety reasons that Vlad wear his armor.

Being as how the Spartan had never been outside the ship when docked he did not fully understand the Field Marshals hesitation about him wearing his armor, until he reached the airlock. Thealon turned to Drex, a type-6 upgraded plasma repeater in hand, and Vlad, a standard issue B-28 Assault Rifle pointed safely at the ground, and looked them over.

He took a deep breath, "Alright leaving and re-entering the ship will be the most…" he twirled his hand thinking of the right word, "hm…important, part of this meeting of ours," he said.

Vlad couldn't help but raise an eyebrow under his helmet, "And why would that be?" he asked.

Drex scoffed, he had been in this situation multiple times, "You'll learn soon enough Spartan, just remember to keep your mouth relatively shut and use that emotion control training of yours," he said checking his weapon.

Thealon looked at Drex as he began, "Yes, that is relatively it…" he said a little impatiently, which worried Vlad, Thealon was _not_ the impatient kind. Thealon's gaze moved back to Vlad, "There will be many news and media broadcasters outside this ship, just remember not to get impatient with them or even speak to them, any and every single word that comes out that speaker of yours, every action you make, can and will be edited, changed, and mixed around with against you, me, your squad, my ship, and ONI. The media is the most trusted by many but is the greatest lie out there, just watch yourself." He turned to the door, picking up his energy sword and placing it on his thigh, Thealon gave a glance over his shoulder, "Best to turn off your speakers, they'll use anything to get a word out of you, and it' important they don't hear you if they succeed," he said.

Vlad nodded and turned off his mic and speakers as Thealon opened the door, even with the sound dampeners, Vlad could hear the screaming of the crowd ahead of them as if it was an angry child yelling in his ear. He shook his head a tad to shake off the small headache he got and gave Drex a glance as Thealon walked down the ramp not even paying attention to the crowd as the law enforcement tried to keep the many reporters back. Drex just gave a, 'Told ya' nod and followed in step with Thealon, Vlad not far behind.

He could hear the various questions pounding at his ears, "Spartan! What is it like living in the Chief's shadow?" "Spartan how bout this?" "Spartan how bout that?" "What's your favorite weapon?" "Will you sign my baby?" "What is it like being kidnapped at the age of six?"

Vlad hesitated for a split second and turned slightly toward the female voice that asked, a woman with shoulder-length red curled hair with green eyes and a freckle spotted face stood with a smug look of satisfaction on her face. Drex had heard the whole exchange, he quickly turned and set a hand on the Spartan's shoulder, forcefully jerking his attention forward as the reporter opened her mouth again.

"You're going to regret even reacting to that question you know?" Drex asked him when they were free of the mob and in relative peace.

Vlad sighed, "Yeah I figure as much, but it's something of an offensive stereotype against all Spartans, the II's were the only ones kidnapped, the III's and IV's were all volunteers. Can't even think of how anyone got their hands on that info," he grumbled.

Drex shrugged, "Every man can be a traitor, trust no one unless you can know you can leave your life in their hands because you know they'll trust you with theirs," the Spartan looked at the elite. He looked back, "You should already know this no?" he asked.

Vlad smirked, "Yeah I do, all Spartans do, I would assume that one you trust is Thealon?" he asked as they approached their destination.

Drex gave a shrug, "Doesn't everyone? Thealon would lay down his life for the entire crew if necessary and I know he is smart enough to only trust a few of those people with his life though. You, Sloan, Ellenor, and I are one of the only ones he trusts to such an extent. But now we must be quiet, we are to wait out here while Thealon goes in and secures the deal," he said stopping at the door ahead of them, Thealon continuing forward.

Vlad stopped and turned to face the direction of the slowly migrating crowd. Without turning he asked Drex a question, "You think there's a chance we _won't _get our hands on whatever we came here for?"

He scoffed in amusement, "When has he ever failed in the art of speech?" he answered with another question.

"You think he ever will?"

"Hate to be around when he does," Drex said, the 'when' not escaping the Spartans attention.

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><p>2184 CE: 14 months after the attack on the Normandy.<p>

Tali sat with her legs drawn up as she looked out a window at the Fleet from the Alarei.

"How long has it been?" she asked quietly to no one in particular. Her father looked over from whatever it was that he had been doing with the parts she had brought back.

"And what would that be?" he asked walking over and leaning against the opposite side of the window, he crossed his arms.

She looked over slowly, "Since I came back with the information from Shepard, since I abandoned him and could do nothing as he was killed. That's what!" she said her voice getting louder. She felt tears come to her eyes as her father walked over and rested her head on his shoulder, and she cried, she cried like she had every time she thought about it.

Her father rocked her back and forth slightly, "Honey none of that was your fault, if you hadn't come back with that information who knows what could have happened. You could have been killed, at either that attack on the Citadel, or the ambush on his ship. That information you brought us could very well be some of the most important information we have come across, and we might never have it were it not for you. Don't blame yourself, you know this wouldn't be what he wants," he father spoke gently, and had succeeded in calming her slightly, though the tears still fell silently. But those last words filled her with anger.

She pushed away from him, her eyes burning into his calm and patient form. "How would you know what he would want, you didn't know him, you don't care!" she said loudly, a few began to look in their general direction.

Rael'Zorah looked at them and they all immediately went back to what they were doing, he let his eyes drift to Tali before his head caught up. He let out a sad sigh and rested his elbow on the sill, looking out the window.

"Tali, what do you see?" he asked her.

Tali's eyes bore into him for a minute before she looked out the window, "I see a lot of run down ships that look like they could fall apart any moment."

"And you would be partially correct," he said, Tali's gaze snapped to him in surprise. "But you know what, it's our lot of rundown ships, in fact it's the largest _Fleet_ of old rundown ships and every one of them are just as important as the next, each being as well. Why? Because no matter how much people judge us, not matter how many hate us, they won't understand, no one will. So Tali, I want you to understand," he looked at her with those experienced eyes, those eyes that were ready for anything anyone threw at him, "isn't it what Shepard would want?" he asked.

Tali felt her lip quiver as she closed her eyes as they began to well up and rested her head against the wall, "No," she said shakily as she began to sob.

Her father wrapped an arm around her and drew her in to an embrace, "So be strong, not for him, not for me, but for yourself and your people. Alright?"

Tali nodded and sniffed, composing herself and taking a deep breath, "Yes, I'm sorry, it's just…hard," she said as her shoulders drooped a bit.

Her father placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him, "I know honey, I know," he said wrapping his arms around her again and she returned the embrace.

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><p>2590 CE<p>

Thealon walked out of the conference room about an hour later, Drex and Vlad at the ready as the mob of reporter steadily drew closer. Thealon nodded as he passed them and they fell into line behind him as he made his way back for the ship.

"So what was that all about?" he heard Vlad asked quietly.

"We will discuss it aboard the ship, till then let us not get more attention than we already have," he said over his shoulder as they began their fight through the mob of reporters.

"Ship Master Thealon! Is it true that several times crew members have resigned after hearing you were in charge due to your reputation?" one of the reporters yelled. He knew better than to give in, but that redhead human bitch always seemed to do as much digging as she could.

Thealon turned and looked Rebecca Stellair dead in the face, his own hovering a good half foot from her face, all color drained from it as he looked at her and he resisted the urge to scoff. "It's Field Marshall, Rebecca, study harder next time," he said before turning and walking up the ramp into the ship, Drex and Vlad walked in after him and he closed the airlock behind them. All three of them let out loud sighs as the relaxed and walked into the ship.

"So what was that all about?" Vlad asked as they made their way down the ship.

Drex let loose an amused huff, "Which part, the meeting or the reporter?" Drex had a thing for pushing his luck, as well as he and Thealon got along, but the two had not always seen 100% eye to eye, that or they had a very strange sense of humor between the two.

"The reporter, and who was she anyway?" Vlad asked.

"A real stubborn and annoying…round up Sloan and Ellenor and tell them to meet me in the conference room, you too Drex, got a couple things I need to inform you guys about. And one of those things includes her," he added grudgingly as he walked into the conference room, Drex and Vlad standing confused for a moment before setting to their appointed tasks.

Five minutes later Vlad, Sloan, and Ellenor walked into the conference room, Drex sat in one of the seats with both his arms leaning on the table as Thealon stood at the end of the table with his arms straight as he leaned against it. they obviously were talking about something before the three walked in.

"We'll finish it later, I have something to tell all of you," Thealon said at first to Drex and then the trio.

"Alright we're listening," Sloan said as the three took seats closest to the elites.

Thealon looked over them before nodding and putting his arms behind his back as he began to pace. "You all know that since the discovery of the Forerunner ships located in the Dyson sphere previously known as Onyx ONI and other organizations within the previous Covenant Hierarchy have been working on a successful FTL drive?" he said more than asked.

They nodded, "And you all know of the previous…failures?"

"Well no offense sir but ships that never return from Slipspace and ones that self destruct upon activating their cores doesn't really go unnoticed," Sloan said with a straight face.

"Especially when one of those had a group of Spartans on it," Ellenor mumbled, the room was quiet for a moment.

"Yes…those. Well at the meeting I have learned that we are to be getting an experimental FTL engine soon, and with the upgrades our ship has we have a highly probable chance of success," Thealon informed them.

They all straightened and looked among themselves, "No offense sir but shouldn't this information be getting shared with the entire crew as well?" Vlad asked leaning on the table slightly.

"Oh do not worry, they will, but since this is not the only topic I wanted to discuss I will be withholding it from them until we are finished here."

Drex rested an arm against the table, "Is it worth it? We either succeed and have the best Slipspace drive invented or we fail and become atomic dust left to settle in the deep reaches of space," he asked.

Thealon let out a sigh, "I know, even with the assurances and the probabilities there is still a chance that it will not end well, so I'm asking you now in advance," he asked them, his voice unsure.

"Come on, no disrespect sir, but that's almost insulting," Sloan said mockingly, Thealon looked among them and all others nodded.

"I fear I may not get the same reaction as most of the other crew members, but I'll take what I can get for now. Now, it will take some time to get here and I have asked to keep the previous drive safely contained aboard the ship in case there are any malfunctions or any doubts in the security of it. With it we will get a small number of new crew for installation and maintenance of the new drive, so get used to some new faces in the near future.

"Now for the other matter at hand, we will be having a…guest stay aboard our ship for a time, a time I could not even pry out of the bastards," he said with a bit of frustration seeping into it that quickly vanished. "We will be having Rebecca Stellair staying aboard the ship for a time and, again, I don't know how long that will be or when. She will have access to only basic parts of the ship, crew deck, bridge, quarters, the armory and limited access to other parts of the ship and is to be monitored at _all_ times, whether by any of you or another crew member. She is not to be left alone for too long, understand? The media is full of the worst of the cutthroats in a way, she is ruthless and will do whatever she deems necessary to get her hands on the grubbiest dirt she can get her hands on.

"And finally…" he stopped and turned to the door as it was obvious there was bickering outside of it.

"When did you say the reporter was gonna be here?" Sloan asked wearily.

Thealon growled, "I didn't."

The door opened to reveal the same reporter that had asked Vlad about the Spartan program and had said something to get Thealon's attention.

She stood there with a smug look on her face as her eyes drifted around the room, "So this is your little posse?" she asked as the camera man came in with a camera in hand.

"Rebecca," Thealon said.

"Yes _Field Master_?" she asked with a little emphasis, not in her overall favor as Thealon remained silent for a moment longer.

"If that camera is on I think you'll be unsatisfied with the length of your little show aboard my ship," he said not even blinking as he looked her dead in the eyes.

She rolled her eyes, "Pft, I think if I took all threats to heart I wouldn't have a very good show," she said.

"Yes, well unlike them, I mean it," he said staring her straight in the face.

"Hey!" the camera man said as, unannounced to anyone, Drex had gotten up and taken the camera out of the mans hands.

Rebecca turned with anger in her eyes, "You can't do that! I have a right to film what I want!" she yelled.

Thealon remained as calm as always, "Yes but you seem to have forgotten that none of those clips leave my ship until I've reviewed them, and yes, I will keep a close, close eye on all your footage and whereabouts. I know you'll do everything you can to send the dirtiest secrets you can find to the galaxy, but I will not let you compromise the respected privacy of my crew or things the media isn't quite ready for yet. Do you understand or do I have to ask Drex if that camera is on?"

There was a long silence, Rebecca narrowed her eyes and turned, she walked out. Drex watched her pass him, then the camera man, he tossed it in the air and the cameraman caught it and walked out after her.

"Thealon?" Vlad asked, the Sangheili seemed very…stressed.

"Fine, the camera Drex, Gods, I don't even know why I'm asking."

"It was on," he said taking is seat beside Sloan again.

Thealon didn't seem surprised, "I can imagine you didn't have it in your hands for two minutes to admire it?"

Despite the helmet covering his face, it was obvious the guy was smiling, "Nope, almost all the footage for the passed hour is off of it," Drex said.

Thealon nodded, "Never fail to amaze me sometimes Drex," he said.

"Psh, you're not gonna be the only one surprised when they figure that little secret out," Ellenor said with a smug smile.

Everyone agreed in silence, "So what about this FTL drive, when is it supposed to arrive, you said soon but…?" Vlad asked.

Thealon gave a little shrug, "Truthfully, by soon I meant up to several months. ONI didn't want to take a chance in case I said no and it is now on its way here now, which in case you didn't pick up, we're gonna be waiting at the station till it arrives and when it does get here I can't even predict how long it'll take to install." Thealon hunched over the table and rested his hands on it, "We are in the midst of troubled times, with the breaking of the truce those years ago, lies and murder plots flying around like old trash. We need to be careful, every step of the way," he gave out a tired sigh, "Drex get me dossiers for a two pairs of hunter, at least one more Huragok, something happened to one of the others in the engine room, and see if you can get in touch with a couple old friends after this, Sangheili would be preferred."

Drex nodded, Ellenor, Sloan, and Vlad looked among themselves cautiously, "There something we should know sir?" Sloan asked.

Thealon nodded, "Yes, when we are done here we need to head to a planet called Dterios in the Rettily system, something's happened there, it's small now but the reports are…strange to say the least," he said quietly.

"Sir, are you sure it would be a good idea to use the engine so soon after installment?" Ellenor asked surprised.

"Did I ever say I thought it was?" he responded slowly looking to her. "I do not approve of using the engine so soon but…Let's put it this way, yes, they have sent other ships, one other and they plan on sending another soon but so far they've lost or can't get contact with it. We're being sent there because there have been reports of some kind of infection, and if need-be, our ship is the closest and most secretive one to…deal, with the problem," he spoke gravely as he hung his head.

It took a moment, Ellenor's eyes went wide, "They want you to glass it?" she said loudly.

Thealon did not respond, Drex cleared his throat, "Only if things are worse than expected," he said.

Sloan's face remained passive as his Spartan training demanded him, "This is what you were discussing before we walked in wasn't it?" he asked seriously. He received a nod from both.

"Listen," Thealon said louder than before, his posture having now returned, "I do not like it any more than you do, but some stories are better off with the unhappy ending, sometimes unavoidable, but it's our duty to take care of this problem if it's outside recoverable reach. And I want this kept out of the reporters ears as long as you can manage, until then you're dismissed, I'll inform you as to when the engine has arrived."

The rest of them took a moment, Sloan was the first to rise followed by Vlad and Drex. Vlad stopped in the doorway as he noticed Ellenor had not risen, he opened his mouth to say something when Drex stepped in front of him, "Give them a minute," he said and Vlad nodded, the door closing behind Drex.

Thealon stood looking at the black oak table, "You sure about all this?" Ellenor asked quietly.

"If you mean risking the integrity of my crew, exposing vital secrets to the entire galaxy and possibly needing to eradicate an entire planets life, no. Do I think that it is necessary, for better causes, except for the reporter deal, yes, but I bet even that will come out eventually," he said.

"We all have to make tough decisions sooner or later I guess," she said getting up and placing a hand on his shoulder, he looked at her. Ellenor gave him a small meek smile before patting his shoulder and walking out.

"Tough times call for tough decisions, tough times indeed."

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><p><strong>AN: Sorry for the long update, I was awaiting for my Gameinformer because it has an awesome review for Halo 4, and you know what that means, possibly critical story elements, which if you pay attention you may spot it. Note however though that just because I wish for general story elements does not mean that I will stick to pure canon. Again sorry for the lengthy update, also partially because it's been very busy around here and I was thinking ahead and I hope you all leave a review, I know it's still kinda on the slow and iffy side of things but I promise some action will happen soon not too worry.<strong>

**Thank you all and I hope you enjoyed the read.**


	3. Chapter 3

Persecution Complex Ch. 3

**AN: Alright I know I said in the last one that it took so long cause I was waiting for the GI issue to come, turns out it did 5 minutes after I posted it. if you have read it you'll see that Spartan IV's were spec ops soldiers put though rigorous training and a lighter version of the Mjolnir armor, but for story purposes I'm leaving it at young volunteers and/or mentioning it somewhere. Anywho, don't forget to leave a review, feedback is crucial, and lets me know if you guys are really interested. May I always apologize for how long it took. Let us proceed then.**

** Disclaimer: If I ever owned these no one would like them and nor would o probably be writing about them, so yeah.**

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><p>2184 CE<p>

Garrus sat with his fingers clasped together as his elbows rested on his knees as he thought. He thought about what happened about a year and a half ago, when he was just a C-Sec officer busting scum left and right. Then when Shepard took Garrus under his wing, making him a soldier, a man, a friend, a great friend. And then everything went to Hell, a normal patrol run, one odd reading and bam, Shepard died, Garrus survived, so did most everyone else, except a couple friends.

Liara, Garrus didn't know what happened to her, but he had gotten into contact with him a couple months ago, said some things had to be taken care of and he didn't hear from her since. He did hear that she was an information broker or something like that on Illium, almost made him wanna laugh, Illium, of all places. She had been the closest to Shepard, better than just friends, and Garrus supported them every step of the way, he just wished he would be able to contact Liara to tell her that. But besides that Wrex had gone back to Tuchanka, him and Garrus had had an antagonizing relationship but they had gotten over it eventually, though they weren't the best of friends they cracked wise every now and then. Wasn't a good enough for either to feel the need to keep in contact though.

Tali went back to the Migrant Fleet, not too much change it would seem on the outside but Garrus knew better, she was the only one he kept in contact with, Shepard's death had hit her almost as hard as it had Liara. He had been told that Cerberus had something to do with a recent attack on the Fleet and he had gotten a couple details from her and some rumors floating about but Tali hadn't been keen to talk about it and no one seemed to care about quarians nowadays. He hoped for the best with her. Ashley had just gone back to the Alliance, Garrus couldn't tell how she felt or how she was, of what Tali had told him she didn't really keep in check with, well, anyone, not Chakwas, not Liara, not Joker, no one. He did know that she was really shook up about everything and Chakwas had been the most surprised that she was just jumping right back into the action, but hey, everyone has their coping measures.

He didn't really know what happened to Chakwas either, she just kinda fell off the map with most everyone else, Joker included. Well that wasn't really true, he got e-mails every now and then from a couple people that were from the Normandy, but not much. Joker was something of a different story though, Garrus knew he had been hit the hardest, he always kept saying how he was the reason Shepard died, so much that Garrus had stopped felling sorry for him and got angry, he had yelled at the fragile pilot, it didn't help. What Garrus heard Joker joined Cerberus for one reason or another, but Garrus had sent him an apology letter and the response he got was a little surprising. He had said Garrus was right and it was time to stop wallowing and whining and it was time to do something, he couldn't go into details, but he had said that what he had probably heard was true and he just had to bide his time.

Garrus smiled a little as he looked over to his Mantis sniper rifle, oh the adventures they had had, most with Shepard, but those days were over, now they hunted criminal scum on Omega.

"Oh how little things have changed eh?" he asked aloud to no one in particular and donned his helmet, grabbing his rifle and taking aim as the Blue Suns waltzed right into his ambush. "Time to shine," he didn't know what was to come in the months ahead, but as long as he could do a little good if the universe was gonna end, well that made things all the sweeter.

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><p>May 1, 2591 CE<p>

Thealon leaned against the wall with his arms crossed as he waited for the new chief engineer to arrive. It had been a while but they had finally gotten the new drive and had just removed the old one when Thealon called engineer Romanouv up. Thealon had seen the man only twice, once when boarding the ship and greetings were made and other being to call the Russian up to have this chat.

Thealon waited a good six minutes before the man walked through the doors and shook the Sangheili's hand again. "Shipmaster, what can I do for you?" he asked taking out a well used cloth and dabbing the sweat off his forehead. He had dark hair that was shaved down quite a bit, he was fairly well built for a human but you can't expect him not to get a little work in being an engineer and all. Currently he wore bluish-grey coveralls and a sweat stained white t-shirt that strained a little under his muscles. And his accent ever present.

"Thealon will do just fine Joseph," Thealon responded holding up a hand.

The big man let grin come across his face and chuckled a little, "As will Romanouv will do just fine for me sir," he said and Thealon nodded.

"Alright, Romanouv, how goes the replacement, I understand you just removed the old drive correct?" he asked.

"Yes, that is correct, we're fitting the new one now, thankfully they built it to size for this ship specifically, makes our lives much easier," Romanouv said as his head bobbed a little in something of a nod.

Thealon nodded, that definitely made things easier, at least now they may have time for what he was about to ask. "Romanouv, how well can you hook up a new drive?" he asked.

The man shrugged a little, beads of sweat slowly began reforming on his head but it wasn't from nervousness or anything, probably from whatever Thealon had him doing in the engine room. "Pretty good sir, should have that new core in by end of the month at the worst, that's mainly due to its model though. A normal engine or drive I can have installed and operational within a week, and that's including getting a new base and everything if I need to make a new installment, why?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

Thealon let loose a small sigh, "I was wondering that, when finished with the newer drive, that you could hook up the old one and make it accessible from the bridge."

The Russian stood a little surprised for a moment, he snapped to though a second later, "I…I-um…yeah I guess so, but it'll be pretty dangerous having the two active at once," he said.

"Yes I know, that's why I'm asking if there's a way to have one inactive at a time. If worst comes to worst I want the experimental drive shut down and the other one ready to go in its place," he explained the best he could.

Romaouv nodded and held his chin with his hand as he thought, he wasn't a stupid man, he knew what the Shipmaster wanted, and it was possible, very complicated but possible. "I understand where you're coming from sir, but I might have to get back to you on it when I've come up with something, it will take time and resources though," he said.

Thealon breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank you Romanouv, we have both of those and if you deem in not possible despite your skills than that is fine just the same," Thealon said.

"Hah!" the Russian threw his head back. He looked back at Thealon and put a hand on his shoulder, "With all do respect sir, I almost find that insulting, I'll make the new drive top priority next to finding a way to get another drive connected. Expect the new one in by the end of the month, both in 5 weeks if luck's on my side," he said and Thealon let a Sangheili equivalent of a grin spread across his face as he nodded. "Good day to you Thealon, worry bout whatever else it is you're worrying about, and let good 'ol Joseph Romanouv handle this," he said pressing an enthusiastic thumb to his chest and walking out.

Thealon nodded to himself, he didn't know where they found them, but the UNSC and ONI somehow got their hands on the best of the best out there, and damn the Gods if he said he didn't appreciate it.

"Thealon!" a feminine voice called from behind him. Any good mood he had drained away quickly as he turned to see Dr. Frey round the corner, a datapad in her hand, he black bunned hair in a slight mess as she waved to him and smiled, making her way over. Elizabeth Frey, there were many things one could say about her, intellectual, somewhat tidy, kind, caring, one could say attractive, and Thealon didn't have a problem with her at all, except that quite literally every conversation except for about two always somehow got awkward about halfway through and ended on the same note.

"Mind if I spend a second or two of your time Thealon?" That and she was the only person he'd met who always called him Thealon when they first met each other four months ago and he had never even known who she was.

"Alright Elizabeth, what do you need?" he asked politely looking at the datapad figuring it had something to do with that.

She cleared her throat, "Well I just thought we should talk about the new Engineers that arrived," she said.

Thealon lifted an eyebrow, "Pardon me asking, but which ones?" the Huragoks he had asked Drex to bring in had arrived the same day as the engineering team with the new drive. He was still waiting on that Sangheili squad that Drex had said he called, but they had time so he wasn't in a rush.

She blushed a little as she fumbled with her words, "Oh-right… I'm-uh-so sorry I-meant…I mean," she stopped when Thealon raised his hand, lowering her head and crossing her arms over the datapad, "Huragok."

Thealon nodded, "Is there something wrong?" he asked.

She looked up, her cheek still red, "No I've just been under little bit of stress is all, you know what I mean?" she said.

"I was referring to what you meant with the…huragok," he said cautiously.

Oh did she change colors on that one, she chuckled nervously and looked away as she cleared her throat, "Oh-ho, right, thought you were, yeah…" see, always. "But, um, what I wanted to talk to you was about getting the proper gas in for them," she started.

Thealon brought a hand to his face and held his elbow in his hand, "Elizabeth," he said his tone a little stressed, multiple times had she brought up the huragok and how they were being treated and how they should. He understood and appreciated the concern but they had taken every precaution, every small detail into account, mainly because of her, but still, they were being treated fine and he was sure the huragok loved it aboard the ship.

"I know Thealon but come on," she said trying to look under his arm or something, "They're just small things referring to the refill stations."

Thealon raised his head and looked at her, "Trust me Elizabeth the refill stations are fine."

"I know, but they could be better," she pointed out handing him the datapad, which he reluctantly took and looked over. Little seemed to have changed even with what she had changed.

"Elizabeth, Doctor Frey," he put a hand on her shoulder, which she jumped a bit to, and held the datapad out for her, "I understand, but I don't think the stations refilling the huragok's methane by a half an once more per minute will make a difference even in the long run."

She blushed again and began a rebuttal, "Well, I guess. But Thealon…" she began but he held up his hand that was previously on her shoulder, his other still had the datapad. She took it.

"Listen," he said placing an arm around her shoulder and guided her a little down the hall. He towered above her by about one-and-a-half to two feet, she was a small woman, she went a little red and looked at his hand and then up at him with the datapad clutched to her chest. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I need you working on understanding that new drive," she opened her mouth to say something, "please let me continue," she closed her mouth and nodded, pushing her square glasses up a little on her head.

He crouched down so he was eye level with her and placed both hands on her shoulders. "You have to understand that if we don't understand how that thing works we can do something that could threaten the lives of everyone on this ship. I just want what's safest right now and you're the best expert on the Forerunners in this galaxy since Halsey passed away three years ago and therefore you're probably the best bet I got for understanding how this thing works, alright?" He must have touched something because she looked ready to explode with joy, her eyes sparkling and she nodded. Thealon returned the gesture and patted her shoulder and stood. "Good I'll expect a report soon I would hope."

She gave a salute, "You got it sir, I'll do my best," she said and turned gitty with excitement, nearly skipping down the hall mind you, and Thealon could make out a faint, "yes!" after she had rounded the corner.

He smiled a little and turned. Not many Sangheili looked on him in high regard because of his attitude, too forgiving, too gentle, but sometimes things have to change, and people must with them. He had been a war veteran since the beginning of the war, and he still knew how many worlds he had fought on, had given the order to glass, the ones he did glass. He watched from orbit as the world burned, the skies blackened with ash, the seas turned to steam, and the land burned till it reflected the sky above it. 23 worlds he glassed in the name of the Prophets, the fools he had believed, but deep down he never wanted it, what had the humans done? The Lekgolo had defiled the Forerunner artifacts, had eaten through them and yet they were accepted into the Covenant because of their fighting prowess when they joined into a single living colony. Yet the humans were hunted to near extinction even though they had enough strength to fight the combined forces of the Covenant, unnatural.

And when it came down to it, he was one of the first Sangheili to fall from the Covenant, and commanded such respect he was given his own fleet to fight the Jiralhanae, though most knew of how that ended. But he had been given command again, leading a fleet of thirty ships they hunted and destroyed not just one, but _two_ of the Halo rings upon finding them and deeming them defiled by the Flood.

So was he a lesser being for his attitude, was he due any lesser respect for it? Well, did he care in the slightest? He strode down the hallway when his comm. buzzed, he looked at it, Drex.

"Drex, what do you need?" Thealon asked as he continued down toward the cargo bay to check on the fighters being prepped.

"Thealon," Drex began, "If you'd head to the cargo bay you can meet the new arrivals." Ah, so the Sangheili squad he had contacted had finally arrived, good, now he had to wait just for the drive to come back online.

"Alright Drex I'm on my way. By the way, you never informed me who was leading this band of Sangheili, I would assume they had one at least," Thealon said as he stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the cargo bay.

There was a pause, "Kamau'Orthel," Drex said quietly, Thealon's eyes widened a bit in surprise before a small grin found its way to his face. Kamau'Orthel, now that was a name quite feared as well as respected. Kamau was well known for being an amazing tactician even while under pressure, and he would damn his soul if he said that Kamau couldn't outsmart or outfight any Sangheili leader. Never liked politics though. But Kamau was best known for being a Field Master, on the ground, in the air…or in space. That's right, Kamau lead one of the best and deadliest Ranger squad out there and from the conversations he had had with the wise creature, Kamau felt the most alive in space. Just the openness, the freeness, how any wrong move can end in a perils trip to the other side of system with only an hours worth of oxygen.

The elevator slowed to a stop and opened, Thealon could even see where Drex laughed with his old comrades, Kamau in his famous golden Ranger armor in the front, bowing his head slightly when he saw Thealon.

"Thealon, it's been a while," Kamau said, Drex showing the other Sangheili to the armory.

"Since Beta Halo, yes. I should have thought Drex would contact you," Thealon said as he gestured the warrior to walk with him.

"Well imagine my surprise when he did, as you said, since Beta Halo, lost two super-carriers to the filth." He sighed as they walked outside to the docking bay, new fighters and cargo was being loaded on as the two friends walked around outside the Destroyer. Kamau placed a hand on the purple metal of the ship, "Never knew they still made these, seems a bit bigger than I remember though," he said and patted the ship before they continued.

"Well, these models used to be some of the best in the Fleet, hardly any UNSC ship every lasted a one-on-one brawl against one of these. Would make sense to make one more, bigger," Thealon smiled, "and better."

Kamau looked to him, "What kinds of teeth do we have here?" he asked as they continued their walk around the ship, unknown to them, a pair of eyes and a camera lens was watching.

Thealon looked around, "Well I can't go into specifics, but some of the best armaments from both sides are on this ship, got some of the best tech has to offer too," he said.

Kamau huffed, "Speaking of tech, I wonder why they didn't come out with these sooner," he said pulling out a small device and handing it to Thealon. "When did they come up with this? I was sitting in a bunker being shot by Brutes and on my last rifle when one of men comes up to and hands me this."

Thealon looked at it and then him with a raised eyebrow, "A recharge unit? These things are standard issue now-a-days," he said.

Kamau threw his hands in the air, "That's what they keep telling me! If someone had come up with these during the war we could have put all that money towards making more ships than guns," he said loudly. Thealon shrugged, it was true, the recharge units, hence the name, recharged an overused plasma weapon, its design allowing it to charge anything from a plasma pistol to a focus rifle. Course depending on said weapon depended on how many times you can use it. It was standard for an infantry unit to carry about five with them depending on their weapon, snipers usually had about 10, all usually exhausted by the end of a mission if things got rough.

Thealon handed the recharge unit back to Kamau, who put it back into a small pouch on his belt, "It's been good seeing you again Kamau, looking forward to being on the same battlefield as you," he said and the warrior nodded.

"Likewise, friend, I'll be in the armory if you need me," he said and walked back to the cargo bay with a nod. Thealon watched as he went, the warrior barely even seemed through the wringer he had been through, 86 as of last month, and still only seemed like a 54 year old, one could say the equivalent of a 21 year old to humans. Wise as an elder too even though he had nearly 150 years before being one.

"Well, Kamau, if there's anyone I trust more on this crew it's myself, good to know Drex can keep an ear pressed when he knows he's needed," Thealon said to himself. He placed a hand on the ship as Kamau had done and patted it, "Let's hope you can handle whatever it is that ONI gave us," he said and walked back to the cargo bay.

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><p><strong>AN: Hey everyone, sorry for the long update and all, i haven't been able to really think of anything lately, writer block's a real bitch when it comes down to it. doesn't help that my computer busted again, well as i like to put it a hole opened in the space-time continuum of my computer and left a giant black gash in the bottom left corner of the screen. needless to say it screwed up the screen and we dug up an older monitor and keyboard from their graves and am using that instead. anyhow i think i'll update this story again once or twice soon because i have it written down on paper and all that wonderful jazz. and after that i'll work on finishing the chapter for ME: Xenophobia, as well as its remake, though for that i'm just uploading the whole thing at once and all. Why i'm telling you guys this i have no idea but i'm tired and rambling on. here's the next chapter, reviews are appreciated, thanks for making it this far, and i promise it'll kick off next chapter, yada yada, good day and or night.<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

Persecution Complex Ch. 4

**AN: Alright I'll see where I can get with this, I have a lot of stuff written down but have no idea if I can stop this where I want it to be stopped and still be a decent length. Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter and hope you look forward to this one, some editing may occur in the future as I noticed some things I needed to touch up on in the last one but nothing too big. Well onward and upward things are finally looking up story-wise in this chapter and I'm not quite sure how it'll look fully printed out but we'll see.**

**D: Need I say anything.**

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><p>June 3, 2591<p>

Thealon paced on the bridge anxiously as the ship pulled away from it's docking clamp, turning clockwise and heading out and away from the busy station. Romanouv had just finished hooking up the older drive yesterday, the new one connected to a kill-switch beside him. If there was any doubt the ship was going to malfunction he hit the button and it would kill the drive and direct power flow to the older drive in its place.

"Green across the charts sir," Lieutenant Haroum said from a forward console beside Drex at the main one.

"New drive powered and ready for a jump sir," Drex said as Thealon paced in front of his captain's chair.

He nodded slowly before stopping in front of his chair, "Activate the new drive, it's time to finally go to that settlement." The ship began to hum as the new drive activated. Thealon kept a tense hand hovering over the kill-switch, he couldn't do it in the middle of Slip-space however, too dangerous, catastrophic even. No, he had to do it before or after, in the middle of a jump the most they could do was try and drop out before killing the engine and giving the other enough time to boot up. It was still quicker and more accurate than most, so if worst came to worst they could manage.

A black Slip-space rupture opened in front of them and the ship moved forward. "What was that human poem," Drex said up front, "'Into the Valley of Death, Rode the six hundred,'" he asked to no one in particular.

"Drex," Ensign Rouste said from navigation, "Shut up." Drex only glanced back and let a deep chuckle escape him as he reached up and adjusted several settings. The ship soon became surrounded by the blackness of Slip-space.

The bridges crew members began their tasks of maintaining the ship, calling out whenever their actions. "Increase power draw from the engines, diverting now…done." "Drones A and B dropped, signal strong." Thealon continued his pace as he watched the crew communicate. Watching and knowing his crew, he and an onboard AI did not seem needed, but both were aboard by standard procedure, the AI being protocol for such an advanced vessel as the _Nero_.

"Shipmaster Thealon, may I speak with you?" speak of the devil. Thealon turned to see Ruby on the terminal beside his chair, she was the ships top-line 'smart' AI. Ruby took the shape of a woman in a black or crimson cloak/robe of some sort, it reminded him something of an old human myth, a sorcerer, a mage he thought they called them. She had a metal crown that had three metal spikes rising from it, though her red hair was visible her ears were covered by the crown. She had a nice face and body according to his human crew, and her whole form was bathed in a red hue.

"Yes, Ruby?" his hands went behind him as he stood facing her with an expressionless face.

She smirked a little at his ability to hide his emotions so professionally though never really having a reason to do so, she bet if he ever gambled he'd have a great poker-face. "I've been keeping an eye on the drive, there seems to be something about it affecting Slip-space."

Thealon visibly tensed, but only for a fraction of a second before raising an eyebrow before turning to look out the main viewing port at the blackness ahead of them. "What have you found?" he asked.

"While it would take around 12 hours to get to Dterios from the _Iridescent_ by my calculations we should be there in averaging around 5 hours," she said mimicking him and placing her own virtual hands behind her. Thealon turned a little and looked over his shoulder at the holographic woman, his gaze shifting to look at nothing in particular, thinking.

Slowly he began to nod, "Thank you, Ruby, please inform me if-," he was cut off as he almost lost his balance as the ship lurched and groaned.

Ruby's eyes widened, "Forerunner core malfunctioning, I would advise…" she was cut off as Thealon cursed and ordered them to drop out of Slip-space as fast as they could. "Shipmaster!" Ruby yelled getting his attention, "We need to decelerate and put the drive on cool-down, it's an experimental drive, we have no idea the effects of simply dropping out." He closed his eyes and nodded, it's beyond dangerous to drop-out with a malfunctioning Slip-space drive. Even more so with an experimental one on its first run.

Everything began to slow, the ship, the heart-rates of the crew, so on. They dropped out of Slip-Space with no harm to the ship or the crew, other than a minor power fluctuation and several wet trousers.

"Ruby, run a quick diagnostics check of the ship would you?" Thealon asked quietly as he leaned on the railing in front of him, relieved they avoided catastrophe. The crew on the bridge seemed to liven up a bit upon seeing they were still alive, the sound of the activity from consoles and the people operating them filled the bridge with welcomed conversations and jokes.

Ruby smiled, "I find it insulting you think I haven't already," she said trying to lighten his mood, he just nodded. She frowned a little but continued, "I've run three already since we dropped out. And, well…" she stopped as the fourth scan of the drive core was completed, "Something is wrong," she said quietly, only Thealon heard her.

He looked around before getting closer, sitting in the captain's chair and leaning over a bit, "What is it?" he whispered.

"The core was fine Thealon," she spoke gravely, "until we activated it. Thealon, someone sabotaged the drive," he took a moment to take this in.

"Do you know how? Internal, was a signal sent, a device or something?"

"Honestly, no clue, if I were to guess the culprit though I'd say an ONI spook on an inside job or a competitor, everyone involved with ONI is practically a cut-throat," she said.

"You'd think ONI would have given up the cloak-and-dagger charade after the second uprising of the Covenant," Thealon muttered angrily to himself. He looked at Ruby, "Don't tell anyone else this unless I tell you otherwise," she bowed her head, "If anyone asks it was a malfunction."'

"Well it would be a white lie if anything," she said matter-of-factly with another grin.

He gave the Sangheili equivalent and nodded, "Alright," he said standing, his voice no longer hushed, "How far away are we from Dterios?" he asked.

"Scanning star maps…" her face twisted, "rescanning," Thealon looked at her with a confused expression. "Um Thealon, I don't think you're going to like this," she said. He held up his hand and took a deep breath before closing his eyes and lowering his hand, "There is no Dterios, in fact, I'm not detecting Sangheilios either. The star maps have changed completely, the only thing I can confirm is Sol and several other non-important systems. I'm sorry," she added as Thealon opened his eyes and looked at her with sorrow, no amount of strength training can prepare you for someone telling you your homeworld is gone.

"Not that…not that I don't trust your words Ruby, but I need to see this for myself," he said quietly, she nodded in understanding despite him not looking at her. "Take us to Dterios when the old drive comes back online," he said turning and sitting in the captain's chair.

As if hearing him from the front, Drex spoke up, "Thealon, the old drive is back online, you want us to make the jump?" he glanced back and saw Thealon nod. "Off to Dterios then," he muttered to himself and signaled to Rouste and a Slip-Space rupture opened in front of them. "Entering Slip-Space in 3…2…1…" the ship was once again engulfed by blackness.

Thealon nodded slowly as he looked over the crew on the bridge, "Now Ruby," he said catching the AI's attention, "How far out are we?" he asked.

"It should take us roughly 3 at this speed in this…new place," she said. Thealon just nodded as he looked over everything from his captain's chair.

A black hole ripped its way into existence and waited for a moment before a large purple plated ship came out of it and slowed to a quick stop, the blackness vanishing behind them. In the bridge of the ship Thealon sat patiently with the red glowing AI next to him looking at the coordinates of Dterios, or rather the blankness of space where it should be. Even if they were 5,000 kilometers off they would at least see it if only a little, but there was nothing, just black with white specs.

Thealon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Call the doctor up here would you Ruby, I think we should talk."

Five minutes later, "Thealon, Ruby said you needed me?" Dr. Frey asked walking up beside his chair.

"Indeed I did," he said, "Look outside and tell me what you see," he said, she hesitated as he never made eye contact with her.

She looked outside and saw nothing but space, "Um…space?" she guessed, she didn't know if this was a trick question.

"That, and the coordinates of Dterios," Elizabeth stiffened.

"Or where it should be with these star maps," Ruby added from the terminal beside Thealon.

"What!" she yelled, several stares came their way before Thealon nodded to them and they returned to their tasks.

"Do keep your voice down please, Dr. Frey. This is something of a private topic, or one I would prefer to remain so," he said looking up at her.

"Sorry, you were saying."

"There is no Dterios, there is no Sangheilios, nothing…" he was staring her right in the eyes, she saw his pain, felt it. "You're our Forerunner and Slip-Space expert, so care to elaborate on a theory per-say as to why only earth and non-essential worlds and systems are reading."

She stood with wide eyes as she thought about what he must be going through, to be told that your own world no longer exists where others did, it must feel so…unfair. She stumbled for words as she thought of something on the spot, "Well, um, let's see. Slip-Space itself literally rips a hole in space and time, so it wouldn't be a surprise if we ended up in a…uh…hm…"

"Doctor?" Thealon looked at her, wanting whatever she had to say to just say it, though he knew what it would be.

She sighed and nodded, "It wouldn't come as a surprise if we ended up, per-say, in another reality," she said hastily. Drex, seemingly the only one who heard despite how far up on the deck he was, glanced back at Thealon while continuing what he was doing.

Thealon nodded to him and opened his mouth to say something to Dr. Frey when his ears caught a nearby argument coming from the hall and getting closer. "Incoming," Ruby said with a small smile and flickered out, Thealon growled.

"Rebecca," his jaws were a little clenched, he stood and turned to look at the door as an angry reporter barged in, cameraman, Ellenor, Vlad, Sloan, and Kamau at her heels. Ellenor was trying to stop the crazy woman and the rest just seemed like they were following, except Kamau, if Thealon knew him well enough he knew he probably had something to tell him.

"Thealon! What, the hell?" the reporter shouted angrily, Ellenor falling silent as she realized it was too late.

He raised a brow, "If you are referring to what I think you are then that happened three hours ago, Rebecca. What took you so long?"

She hesitated, "I was…asleep," she straightened up however, "But I was awoken to be told that there was a malfunction with the engine and we dropped out early!" The doctor looked between the two during the reporters rant.

Thealon looked at her, "We'll finish our talk in a moment doctor," he said casually as he looked back to the reporter.

"Forget her!" Rebecca yelled, Elizabeth shrank and backed away, Sloan coming up and placing a friendly hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, he had his helmet on, mainly for the camera, but she could feel the smile he was giving her. It was amazing really, she thought as she smiled back and relaxed, how despite all the truths and stereotypes, Spartans could be so gentle despite wielding so much strength.

Sloan patted her shoulder and looked back to the scene before them, "I want answers Thealon, where are we and why can't I contact my supervisors?" the reporter yelled angrily.

Thealon stared at her emotionlessly and then nodded to the Spartans who returned the gesture and walked out, Kamau bowing his head slightly as each one passed him, but did not move besides that. Elizabeth had heard a couple things about this Sangheili, one rumor she had seen somewhere was on Reach, groundside nearly the entire time and survived since day 1 of the invasion. The _Long Night on Solace,_ the ship used to take out the first super-carrier above reach, was his, well after his superior was killed on the bridge, Kamau had been forced to take a drop pod out. But somehow he survived the entire invasion where so many fell around him, Covenant and human alike, some people caught glimpses of him, but he just disappeared. In fact, a couple hush-hush rumors that she probably wasn't allowed to talk about were floating around that he successfully killed two members of the legendary Noble team, Noble 2, Kat, and when his time came, 6 fell before Kamau's blade.

The golden elite caught her gaze and looked at herm she shivered a bit. The helmet was pretty opaque, but his HUD light interface could project a light to show his face. However he kept it off more often than not, he turned it on in Thealon's presence usually though. He also, in those moment, exercised one of his suits unique abilities, to avoid the cameras attention his armor turned to a normal ranger white and turned off his visor light, they apparently seen him beforehand. The cameraman looked at Kamau confused for a moment but returned his attention to Rebecca. Frey could only guess why he his suit had the ability to do that, blending in to seem like a normal troop, colors usually gave away rank fairly easily.

"Well Rebecca, if you must know…" Thealon began but was cut off abruptly by Drex.

"Sir, ships have just entered sensor and visual range, not picking up an IFF…nor do they match any know ship design I've got in the databank, secret or otherwise," he spoke gravely. Thealon gave the doctor a glance before walking up to the railing, the reporter quickly and quietly talking with the cameraman.

They were ships like Dr. Frey had never seen before, they kinda looked like preying mantis' only without all the legs and were a grey color. They didn't look Covenant, or Kig-Yar, they kinda seemed like warships, but all were pretty small despite there being about 20 of them.

Thealon tensed a little, "Prepare an olive-branch, first-contact package," he said cautiously, "Try to open a channel with them," the bridge was alive with movement. He pointed to Unggoy, "SlipShap," strange name, "I want you listening for anything." The Unggoy, not just SlipShap, were good at learning, understanding, and speaking new languages, often able to speak several human languages as well as their own. Thealon pressed the intercom button, "Get me a Huragok up here now," he said hastily, a green light popped up a moment later.

"Opening channel," one of the crew members said, Elizabeth didn't catch who though, strangely enough Drex was the only Sangheili out of the entire bridge crew, guess humans still had them beat there.

"Thealon," Drex said gravely as he looked over his shoulder at the shipmaster, "They declined…" as he said it the ships, which had been drawing closer, open fired, all 20 or so of them. All of the shots hit at nearly the same moment, the ship shook with the force of the impacts, thankfully the shields held.

"Shields at 67%...Shit!" Lieutenant Haroum yelled spontaneously beside Drex, Thealon understood why. They had just found an alien race, and failed to negotiate a peace treaty with them, no one wanted another Great War. It had almost been 40 years since the first defeat of the Covenant, and four years later when they up-rose again, and were still recovering their numbers.

"Their weapons are like MACs, but much less effective," Doctor Frey observed quietly. She heard Thealon exhale besides her

"Drex…" he said quietly, "Ready the main gun," he leaned on the railing before him. Drex seemed confused for a moment, after all, Ensign Rainwater was in charge of weapons.

"Um…alright sir, preparing firing solution for MAC guns and plasma torpedoes," Drex said.

"No, Drex, the main gun," he said staring intently at the enemy ships, everything aboard the bridge fell silent in that instant. "Rebecca," Thealon said not taking his eyes off the approaching ships, "I would greatly appreciate you turning off that camera." The reporter opened her mouth to protest but closed it after a moment and nodded, the cameraman lowered his tool. "Ruby, get the weapon ready," he said flatly as another barrage rocked the ship.

"Shields at 37%, Thealon, we can't take them?" Haroum asked looking back.

"No, there are too many and I don't want to risk unnecessary damage to the ship, Ruby, prepare Cole Protocol just in case."

The AI bowed her head beside him, "Aye, aye, sir…preparing firing solution…"

* * *

><p>Tali sat in the back of a scouting ship as it went about its patrol route. All quarians had to run a scouting run sooner or later and while this wasn't her first time she felt she needed just something to do. There had been quite a few reports of geth activity in this sector most recently and while their ship was no bigger than a dropship it had state-of-the-art stealth tech, almost as good as the old <em>Normandy.<em> Tali frowned behind her mask, there is was again, thoughts about the _Normandy_ and Shepard.

Her thoughts were thankfully interrupted by the pilot, "Tali'Zorah, we're exiting FTL soon, stealth drives engaged," her father had put her in charge of this particular run. She stood and grabbed the handrails and worked her way up front to the cockpit. "There have been quite a few reports of geth in this area, let's hope they've continued to disregard windows," the pilot said as he typed in a couple commands. "Brace for deceleration," Tali quickly returned to her seat and buckled up, "alright, dropping out of FTL in 3…2…1…" Sadly they had one of the crappier vessels in the lot and one of the bad features was that it didn't have very good cushioning for deceleration, therefore, had she been standing she would have gone flying face-first into the front window.

The pilot did a routine run of the ships diagnostics as the copilot stared out the window. "Alright, we've returned to normal space and everything is…What…" the pilot asked sharply as the copilot tugged at his arm and followed the quarian's finger as he pointed out the window. Both stared jaws dropped behind their helmets.

"What is it?" Tali asked unbuckling and walking up to the front and her eyes went wide. "Keelah…" she said breathlessly, before them was a scene of pure devastation, pieces of ships littered the area everywhere. And in the middle of it sat the largest and strangest ship Tali had ever seen, easily about two times the size of the Destiny Ascension, the asari dreadnaught that was the Flagship of the Citadel Fleet. It was a strange purple color and was just a complete Leviathan of a vessel.

"Keelah, the scanners say all these ship pieces are geth, and there were…twenty…of them…" his voice just dropped off in pure horror and amazement.

The copilot spoke up, "I'm not getting any energy readings from it, we may have just missed the battle though because I'm getting some eezo readings from the geth ships, too much to see what's coming off the ship though. What I do know though, is that thing is dead in space, whatever happened here it doesn't have any power." Tali just stared at it, 20 geth ships, it had fought and destroyed 20 ships and didn't even have any hull damage, Keelah she could only wonder how it lost power.

"Tali," she snapped out of her trance as the pilot called her name, "Should we inspect it?" he asked. It was quarian nature to salvage things, and finding a fully intact dead ship of that size was irresistible.

She thought about it for a moment, "Alright, but take it easy, send a message to my father on the Alarei. Be careful, if this thing is hostile and the power comes back on I want to make sure we can get out of here fast."

"Got it," the pilot said and licked his dry lips nervously before moving their shuttle through the wreckage. As they approached the copilot seemed distressed about something.

Shaking his head he shifted nervously, "Ugh, there's just too much here for me to even comprehend," he said.

Tali looked over his shoulder, "What is it?" she asked him.

"However long ago this happened it was no more than an hour ago at best. That ship," he said pointing, "doesn't even have an eezo reading and the geth ships aren't interfering with the scans anymore. They have some readings but none whatsoever coming from that ship, whatever that thing is, it's unnatural."

She was almost afraid to ask, "What else did you find?"

"That ship," he began again until one of the consoles flashed, "…just sent us a message," all three of them looked among themselves.

"Maybe it's just a lingering message, happens sometimes if it was sent out, radio signals flying about space and all. Maybe they were trying to contact the geth?" the pilot suggested.

"Maybe," Tali said quietly, "Open it, do we know what it is, or what it says?"

The copilot typed in several commands and suddenly several images popped up, "What the…these look like pictures of humans," he said. He typed in a couple more commands and, the pictures began to cycle. "By the looks of it there's even a full human alphabet, culture, everything…but why would they do that?"

Tali wondered the same thing, then it hit her, "That's a first-contact package, every Alliance, turian, asari, everyone has got one," she said.

"So it's Alliance, that doesn't look like any design I've ever seen before, and you'd think they'd know about the geth, especially with what happened two years ago," the pilot said.

"Don't remind me," Tali muttered so quietly that none of the pilots made out what she had said.

Suddenly, the copilot froze, "It's definitely not Alliance," he said, fear edging at his voice.

"What do you…?" Tali's eyes widened as she looked at the console. New pictures had popped up, a race of tall, dark-purple skinned figures began appearing, many of them seemed to be training or something.

"They kinda seem like turians," the pilot said, and he it was kinda true, the kinda did. Very military based by the looks of it, tall, they even had mandibles, but instead of a lower jaw and one pair they just had two pairs of mandibles.

"You think we should tell the-," the copilot began but was cut off by the pilot.

"Hey! I'm picking up something, it's an energy reading, not eezo, I don't know what it is but it's still there." The pilot frantically looked over his shoulder, "It's powering up!"


	5. Chapter 5

Persecution Complex Ch. 5

If there ever was a place Daniel Jones could be right now it would be on a remote planet with his own home with billions of credits in his pockets with the finest cars and women money could buy. But instead he sat in a crappy ass cruiser in the middle of nowhere working for the Blue Suns with a paycheck that would make a vorcha laugh at him. On the bright side he was in charge of said vessel so everything came to him first, which was better than nothing really, except he just sat around with his thumbs up his ass until something did happen.

He sat on the bridge of this wonderful vessel that he cared so little about he couldn't come to remember its name, picking at his fingernails as everyone aboard did whatever their chore was. And there he was nearly drifting off when sergeant whats-his-face called him.

"Hey Daniel, we got something here," he was arguing with someone else by him a moment before so he had probably just called him to settle the dispute. Dan didn't even bother getting up.

"And what would that be," oh the enthusiasm and interest was pure and evident in his voice.

"We got a massive energy reading over in the Valhallan Threshold, Paz system. We're not sure what it is but _I_ think we should check it out," the batarian said giving the human he was arguing with a glare.

"Well it's probably just a solar flare or something, there's no point other than possible getting us atomized," the human rebutted. "Besides, the quarians have got their fleet in that cluster," he added turning to Dan.

Daniel rolled his eyes, "Let's just check it out, it's not like the quarians ever just open fired on anyone who got close, we'll just say we're passing through. Besides, it'll give us _something _to do, I don't think I'm the only one sick of scanning space dust looking for anything to pass the time." The human nodded slowly before giving up against arguing, "Alrighty then, it's settled, let's just check it out, if it's space dust it's space dust and we just mark it off as checked. If not, well, who knows what we'll find."

* * *

><p>Thealon looked around the darkened bridge, the weapon had disabled a lot of the ship it would appear. "Ruby, what happened?" he asked aloud, hopefully she was still working. The terminal next to him apparently was still functional as her red form appeared and bathed him and some of the bridge in a gloomy red light.<p>

"Most non-critical systems are shut down, the weapon had too high of a power draw and disabled us. Engines, weapons, and drive core are also offline, life-support is still operational thankfully."

"And the enemy ships?" Thealon asked, he knew the shields were still active somehow, but if there was still at least one, without weapons active to defend themselves, it wouldn't matter.

"Long-range and visual sensors are down, but of what I can tell, no hostile ships survived, no life-signs are being detected. We got them all," Thealon nodded and took a deep breath, falling back into his chair as he did so. "Correction," he opened his eyes, "new vessel just entered short-range scanners and should be within visual range. It is too small to be a warship, suggested scavenger vessel or scouting ship." Thealon stood and walked forward up to the viewing platform and looked out the main port, and there in the distance was a small ship. Smaller than a phantom but bigger than a seraph, no doubt a scouting ship at the speed it was moving, maybe it was a scavenger ship though as it went through the wreckage.

"It doesn't look like the same make-up as the other ships, any life-forms?" He was well aware of everyone else's presence around him, Rebecca, Kamau, Dr Frey, they were all still near his captains chair watching. He did hear Rebecca leave however, judging by a whispered argument it wasn't by choice, but she left anyway.

"I'm detecting three life-forms aboard the vessel. Alert, first-contact package received," Ruby said, Thealon turned confused.

"But we never sent it out, the communications request was denied, we prepared it but I never gave the order." He returned to his chair as some power began to return to the bridge, consoles flickered to life and some of the crew went right to work, the lights, however, stayed off.

"It was prepared but upon power loss it must have been sent automatically, whoever they are they have it now," suddenly the lights flickered on, "Almost all systems online, Slip-Space drive and engine still down however."

"Comms?"

"Still down," there was a small rumbling in the ship, "Engines back online, your friend Romanouv really knows how to use a wrench," Ruby said with a smile.

Thealon did slightly as well, "Let's hope he takes a more careful approach to the drive."

* * *

><p>"It's powering up!" the pilot said frantically.<p>

"Keelah, I'm sending a message to the Alarei!" the copilot said as he began to type up a message.

"No," Tali said catching his arm, "They're on their way, we just have to wait, they'll be here."

"What hope do we or the Alarei have against a ship that can take on 20 geth warships unscathed? The Alarei is just a science vessel!" the pilot yelled.

Tali felt like slapping him to get him under control, "If they sent out a first-contact package do you think their first intention is galactic dominance you Bosh'tet," the pilot shrunk under her words in shame. "Now get a hold of yourself and see if we can open communications," she finished.

The copilot, who had remained quiet during the argument, spoke up, "Sorry, Tali, I don't know if that's a good idea, who's to say they'll even understand us," he said.

"I understand your concern, but we-," she was cut off abruptly as the console began to flash, all three of them froze.

"We-we're being…hailed…by the ship," the pilot muttered.

* * *

><p>"Communications back online, the vessel has continued to remain motionless, do you want me to hail it?" Ruby asked Thealon as he continued to watch it, processing everything.<p>

"Yes, we'll send a message," he said at last, the door opened behind him and the huragok he had asked for had finally arrived. It let out a purring sound and Thealon nodded, "SlipShap," he called to the Unggoy, who jumped and fumbled with his headset and managing to catch it before it hit the floor, "I want you listening at all times." SlipShap nodded and put the headset back on, "Ruby, prepare the message."

* * *

><p>"Should we…?" the copilot began looking at Tali.<p>

She stood motionless for a moment before nodding, "Answer it."

The pilot nodded and pressed the button on the console, a moment later a deep voice barked a completely foreign language that was its native tongue at them, they didn't understand a word. The pilot shook his head, "Just what I thought, pointless. Where did we think we'd get with…" he stopped when the voice repeated.

"This is Shipmaster Rioc'Thealon of the joint UNSC-Separatist ship the _Nero_, we have sent you written forms of this message as wish no harm. We only want peace please respond to this message when and/or if able." All three were silent.

"Was…was that…English? How does an alien race know English?" Tali asked astounded. She was the first to snap out of her amazement, "Well what are you waiting for, respond!" she said, the pilots jumped a bit and nodded.

The pilot leaned into the mic, "Ship _Nero_, we read you but we are not equipped with a first-contact package, we can and are sending you our translation software however…" he leaned back and chuckled. "We just made contact with an alien race, Keelah," he said, Tali felt a grin come across her face.

"And they want peace, let's not forget that," she said quietly and cleared her throat, "Let's wait and see what they have to say."

* * *

><p>Thealon sat with the huragok floating beside him, watching the scene and listening. The screen flashed, incoming message, he tapped a button on one of the arm rests and leaned forward with a slight turn of his head to listen to it more closely. He heard what sounded like an accented human male voice speaking in a completely foreign language.<p>

The huragok chirped happily and Thealon looked to see that the aliens had sent translation software. He made a quick copy and sent it to SlipShap's console before moving aside to let the huragok work, Thealon had several earpieces handed to it and it began to fiddle with them.

"SlipShap, how's it going over there," he called over to the Unggoy.

He held up a thumb, "I've gotten the translation software now sir," he said in his usual high-pitched/squeaky voice.

Drex decided to speak up, "Seems like they responded when you spoke English, probably just me but I'd stick to it just in case. And if we're going to be working negotiations it might be better to do it on a planet, face-to-face is a bit better I'd think," he suggested.

The doctor had stood silent and relatively ignored up to that point but watched as Thealon nodded and beckoned to Ruby, "Ruby, I want you to scan the star charts, look for anything that would be alright to land on." The AI bowed her head and Thealon began another message, sending it when he was done to the other ship.

"Sir," Rouste said from his console, "I've detected another, larger ship that has just entered sensor range."

Lieutenant Coupland, manning engines, began to panic, "They've been playing us!" he shouted and stood, "We should open fire now before they do first!"

Thealon looked at the man, "Lieutenant, I'll deem what is and is not a threat, now sit down before I have you forcibly removed from this bridge for insubordination!" he threatened calmly. He sighed, "Now, let's see if they accept our terms."

* * *

><p>Tali paced impatiently in the back of the ship as they waited for the ship to respond. "Tali, we got another transmission," the pilot said, she came forward and leaned on the back of their chairs as he played it.<p>

"We have received your package," the voice continuing to use English, "we have our best…translators, working on it. However," that wasn't always good, "we are curious as to why we were openly fired upon before when trying at peace negotiations, our weapons are active for any signs of hostility. We would like this to end peacefully though and if you agree to we would like to meet face-to-face on a planet of our choosing. We will await your answer," the voice finished.

"They…they want to meet face-to-face…?" the copilot asked a little confused.

"On a planet," Tali finished, "It's…understandable I guess, if you want to get to know the person you're trying to cooperate with it's best to do it in person."

"Well that's not the only thing though, they said they have their weapons active for any sign of hostility," the pilot reminded them.

"That's understandable though, wouldn't you be cautious if you were fired upon by twenty ships and suddenly out-of-the-blue someone wants a peace negotiation?" Tali countered, the pilot slowly nodded and looked back at the ship.

"We got a message from the Alarei," the copilot said, he took a moment to look it over. "Shit, they'll be here any second!"

Tali's eyes widened as she though about the voices words, "Quick, I'll send my father a message not to open fire. Tell them the approaching ship is harmless and that it was geth attacking them, not us!" She queued up her omni-tool and her father answered as the pilot began a message to the aliens. "Father, do not open fire on the new ship, we're working out a peace negotiation now. They're wanting to meet on a specified planet if we agree, I think they're lost though, I doubt they're here to lay a trap."

Her father looked a little perplexed for a moment, "Um, alright Tali, we're dropping out now, we'll pick you up and continue negotiations aboard the Alarei." He nodded and Tali breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the pilot, who gave her a thumbs-up, he knew what to say. The Alarei dropped out besides them and moved in as he finished the message and sent it, falling back in the seat with relaxed ease.

"We might actually pull this off," he said with a chuckle as Tali smiled and looked out the window at the massive ship. Maybe they can.

* * *

><p>"The scouting vessel is being picked up by the newly arrived ship, message incoming from the scouting vessel, patching it through," Ruby said beside Thealon.<p>

Thealon tapped a couple keys and a holographic box appeared, he heard the huragok chirp happily beside him and looked at it to see it finish with one of the earpieces and handing it to him. He played the message when the earpiece fit snuggly in his ear, "We understand your caution," the voice of what sounded like an accented human male said to him, "We did not order the attack however. You were attacked by a hostile race of machines known as the geth," Thealon could make out a faint woman's voice in the background, but it was indistinguishable as to what she was saying. "We will discuss the peace terms in a moment but have to consult our captain first, we'll pick up the conversation shortly," the voice finished and the message ended. Thealon closed the holographic display and watched as the small vessel was shadowed and swallowed by the new ship.

"SlipShap, any luck on the translations?" he asked slowly turning his attention to the Unggoy, who put his headset down.

"I think I've almost got it fully understood sir," he said before picking the headset back up and putting it on his head, nodding his head as he listened to another recording.

Thealon heard an agitated growl from the huragok, it seemed to be struggling with the earpieces, "What is it?" he asked the floating creature. Thankfully he had been taught to understand huragok sign language, as tricky as it was he never regretted getting the training. 'It does not understand…something, I cannot fix it,' when a huragok said it could not fix something, you know screwed up somewhere down the line, _bad_. "What do you mean it will not understand?" 'The system is too different, these devices to not understand as yours has, none of them,' that was a problem. "Can you understand the language, or can you at least get something into the Spartan's helmet?" he asked, 'Unknown, will try.' Well thank the Gods at least SlipShap had something of an understanding.

"Transmission incoming sir," Drex said and Thealon turned back to Ruby.

"Have you found those coordinates?" he had to come prepared just in case.

"Yes, it is in the next system over and will require a small jump but should suit us just fine," she responded.

"Good, prepare it to be sent over to the other ship, also, are stealth systems online?" she nodded, "Good, I'll inform you all of the plan in a moment. Drex, patch it through."

* * *

><p>Tali stood behind her father and next to the two pilots just in case they wanted to talk to familiar…voices. They had briefed her father quickly as soon as they walked into the bridge and were now currently waiting for the 'Shipmaster' to answer. They were using the vid-comm so they could communicate, in a way, face-to-face. The bridge of the Alarei was tense, they met an alien race and now had the chance to see what they looked like. But if things went sour…well the fact that it had taken 20 geth warships unscathed, the odds weren't in the science vessels favor.<p>

Tali's heart was beating quickly with the adrenaline of the moment as they waited for a full minute. Finally, 'Transmission received, opening video communication,' a screen said with a small spinning circle beside it. Everyone froze, Tali wrung her hands nervously as she watched the screen, it opened at last, and Tali suppressed a gasp where most others didn't. The figure was quite intimidating, every look about him seemed to point to a militaristic figure. His armor was a dark purplish maroon color with blue lights that trailed about it in what Tali guessed as a decretive manner, his helmet had two small horns or spikes in the front of the helmet. Which in itself fanned out a bit the further back it went, it didn't seem like his head was that big but who knew.

Rael'Zorah cleared his throat, "Hello, I am Rael'Zorah, a member of my races Admiralty Board and current captain of this ship, the Alarei," he said formally. "We have agreed to meet you at a specified location, and we have no reason to deny peace." He stepped aside and waved a hand to Tali and the two pilots, all of whom straightened even more, "These are the members of the scouting vessel you were contacting previously if you would like to speak to them first." The alien closed his eyes as he bowed his head slightly and reopened them upon lifting his head back up.

"So he understands now," Lan'Gartel, the pilot, muttered to himself.

"This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema, my daughter, Lan'Gartel nar Rayya, and Reg'Stemal vas Alarei," her father introduced them, all bowing or nodding their heads.

"I respect your professionalism, you three, not many can keep calm under such pressure and stress…" he said looking off-screen at something, his attention returned them. Tali straightened and adjusted her footing, the voice of the alien was slightly deep, but calm and experienced. "We thank you for your cooperation, we…are still recovering from an absolutely devastating war, we wouldn't like another," he said. "I apologize in advance as well as our tech specialist is having trouble with the translation software you sent us. Only one other member of my crew at the moment besides myself will be able to understand you for the time being, it is subject to change I would expect soon, but no guarantees."

"Thank you for informing us, we will give you a copy of all known languages when we meet, hopefully you'll be able to use it then," Rael said.

Tali decided to speak up, clearing her throat she said, "My apologies, the ship we had wasn't the best we have," the figure nodded in understanding. "And if you'll pardon me for asking, but how is it know English, or even speak it so fluently?" she added, it was something that she was curious about for a while.

The alien hesitated, "How do you know the humans language?" he asked cautiously in return, Tali and some of the other crew grew confused. How did they know humans, they had seen what looked like humans in the FC package but had come to a conclusion it was just a similar looking species.

Rael glanced at Tali and then turned his attention back to the figure, "How is it you know about the humans?"

The alien stared at them for a moment, "I guess we have much to discuss, I am sending you the coordinates of the planet and meeting location, we hope to meet you there. Thealon out," he finished and cut the line. Everyone either stared at the blank screen or, some like Tali, looked out the main window at the ship, which didn't jump into any kind of FTL, it just began to slowly move.

Rael looked at the pilots of the Alarei, "Let's get to the rendezvous point, they were even kind enough to give us the land coordinates, someone thought ahead. They're smart," he looked out the window at the ship as it gained speed. "I guess they'll meet us there, make the jump," the pilots nodded and prepared the ship to jump to FTL, Rael turned to Tali as she continued to look out at the hulking beast. "Come on, I want you, Reg, and Lan with me when we go, he seems to have taken a liking to you three and I think it's important he sees some familiar faces."

Tali nodded, "Okay father, I'll get my things together," he patted her shoulder and turned around, "Let's just hope we can pull this off," she mumbled to herself as she went to grab her things.

* * *

><p>"Is the Slip-Space drive active yet?" Thealon asked Ruby as he stared into the empty holoscreen that he closed a moment later. He saw the Alarei jump to what he assumed was its form of FTL travel.<p>

"Yes it came online while you were conversing with Rael'Zorah, it's ready for use," she said calmly. For a 'smart' AI she always seemed to have a calm or flat tone, but she was known to crack a joke here or there and sometimes had an obvious change in tone or attitude.

"Alright let's go then, Drex, you know what to do," Thealon stood, "when you're done I want you in the cargo bay getting ready, we'll be taking a phantom planet-side. Ruby, as soon as we drop out of Slip-Space I want stealth systems engaged," he turned and gestured for Kamau to follow as he had waited patiently the entire time. "I would like you to join us too, go grab the Spartans and a pair of hunters, SlipShap and the huragok will be down shortly," he said as they walked down the hallway, the fellow Sangheili nodded. Thealon went to go on his way when he stopped and turned as the other broke off to go his own direction, "And was there something you needed to tell me?" he asked and Kamau nodded.

He approached the Field Marshall and looked around before whispering in his ear, "Be wary old friend, not all can be trusted aboard this ship, watch your back," he said and nodded before heading for the armory. Thealon watched as the golden Ranger walked down the hall and rounded the corner. So even Kamau knew someone in their midst did not have the best intentions for them, that only confirmed his suspicions. Thealon stood still for a moment before nodding and turning, heading down the white halls toward the elevator, he needed to grab his gear and get the ship ready, if they got there first it was better to make sure they didn't get betrayed.

}}}{{{

Vlad, Sloan, and Ellenor were inspecting some of the new weapons and gear that had arrived before they left. Sloan reached into one of the crates and pulled out a fairly large, as in long barreled, weapon, he pulled off the plastic and inspected it.

"Hey Ellenor, I think you'll like this one," he said tossing it to her, she caught it and looked it over, bringing up to her shoulder and getting a feel for it.

"What is it? Never seen this model before," she asked lowering it and looking over again.

Sloan picked up the datapad on the side, "It's called the devian DV02, it's a sniper of sorts, if I were to guess by what the description is giving me it's like one of those old rail guns only more concentrated. In other words, a very powerful sniper rifle," he said tossing the datapad aside and picking up another one, nodding and setting it back in it's crate.

"Hey check this out," Vlad said tossing Sloan another weapon, it had something of a snubbed barrel and was very compact, it had the unmistakable look of a covenant gun to it.

Sloan lifted it up a bit and got s feel for it, "If I were to guess, this is a shotgun, judging from the looks of it, a plasma shotgun."

"Something like that," Vlad said looking at the datapad that came with the crate, "Something you'd use?" he asked.

Sloan made a small frown and shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not, we'll see," he said tossing it back to Vlad, who put it back into the crate.

"You know what they need," Ellenor said propping the devian up against the wall beside her as she rifled through another crate, "They really need a plasma burst weapon, like the battle rifle, or something," she said.

"Well they have the assault carbine, you know, like the old semi-auto one from the war, only it bursts, guess it's not much of a plasma weapon but still," Vlad said with a shrug. He picked up a single carrying case, lifting it up by the handle he set it on a table and lifted the lid, he pulled the gun out. It looked like a B-28 assault rifle except that it had fairly large grip and an extended barrel, with a small scope attachment within the case. Vlad held it up to his shoulder and made a couple quick flicks with it and pulled the grip back, it made a small click. He inspected it more closely, "Interesting, it's an AR with a burst setting and it's got an underbarrel grenade launcher," he said.

Sloan walked over and checked out some of the other cases, picking up a particularly interesting one. It had the distinct look of a Separatist design to it, purplish in color and rounded a bit in places, he set it on the table and flipped it open, inside was a gun similar in design to the plasma repeater. He lifted it and inspected it a bit closer, instead of such a large barrel it similar in size to the UNSC battle rifle, except it had a small bulge to the grip and was a bit longer. It had the trademark plasma weapon give away's, purple, rounded in places instead of blocky, lights, and had moveable points to allow for cooling. "Kinda seems like this'll be that plasma burst weapon you were asking for Ellenor," he said checking the label, "called a plasma carbine."

That got her to come over and check it out, she grabbed another box and picked it up and pulled out her own. "Feels nice, I'll try it out," she said putting on the magnet strip on her back, Sloan putting his there as well. The new armor allowed for up to three weapons to be carried, two large rifles of sorts, and a pistol or other one handed weapon for the right thigh.

"I think I'll stick with the good old BR and maybe I'll give this new one a shot, where'd I put my pistol?" Sloan said looking around.

"Check your helmet, I think you set it down over by it," Ellenor said pointing to his Venator helmet. He looked over his shoulder and walked over to it, picking up the grey and red helmet and picking it up, his handy pistol right behind where it was.

"Thanks," he said with a nod and set it on his thigh.

"I understand you holding onto a prized possession and all, Sloan, but it's been almost 18 years and you still use that pistol," Ellenor said picking up a newer model of his pistol, still with a silver shine to it.

He shrugged, "Saved my life more times than I can count, I'm willing to wait till it's slag before giving it up," he said taking it off his thigh twirling the pistol on his finger a bit.

"I get it, I do, but come on, that thing has dents and scrapes in it all over, who knows when that thing will give out on you when you do need it," Ellenor continued the argument.

"Well some things never beat the classics, this thing will have more punch to it then that thing ever will," he said gesturing to the pistol in Ellenor's hand.

She raised her arms in a surrendering gesture, "I'm just saying Sloan, I wouldn't want that thing as my last resort though, might give out any moment," she said but left it there.

"I appreciate the concern," Sloan said setting it back on his thigh, "but I trust the gun in my hand, it's not that bad anyway, when it does give though I'll be sure to give you a shout," he said.

"Guess I should keep a spare on me then huh?" Vlad said with a smirk as he checked over his new knife, his old one snapping off in a brutes skull two missions before. The other thing was old, that and the brute had some pretty thick armor, but it went to further Ellenor's point.

"Guess you should," he said as Vlad sheathed his knife on his belt. Each one of them heard the door open and in came Kamau'Orthel, while none of them had openly conversed or heard too much about him, they knew he was a good friend of Thealon, and that was enough for them to trust him.

The gold ranger looked them over and at some of the guns out in the open, they looked him over too, he only had a plasma pistol and an energy sword on his person at the moment. "Thealon wants us ready to go soon, we'll be going planet-side to meet with some people, he wants you combat ready just in case," he said walking past Vlad to grab a personalized plasma repeater, dyed a crimson instead of a purple with a grayish pattern running along it with a small round to it due to its ability to fire a plasma grenade. And his focus rifle, also personalized, not the same design, but similar. "Thealon will explain his plan in the Phantom hopefully, and if not, when we get groundside."

The three of them nodded, Sloan donned his helmet that was in his hands and reached back and grabbed his combat knife, strapping it to his belt and picking his battle rifle up and putting it on his back. Ellenor grabbed her helmet and put it on, picking the devian rifle up and putting it on her back next to her new plasma carbine, she checked her pistol and walked over to Kamau with Sloan. Vlad picked up the new assault rifle and a plasma shotgun, he chose a normal magnum and was about to pick up his new helmet when he saw a small package beside it addressed to him, he opened it and inside was a new helmet. He examined it, it had a similar design to his newer GUNGIR helmet except it was more rounded and had a white X covering the front of the red helm. He put it on and the HUD snapped on inside, it was as easy to see with as the EVA helmet. He looked at the others, Ellenor gave a nod and Vlad returned the movement.

"Well what are we waiting for, let's see what Thealon has planned," he said and they all walked out. Along the way they picked up a hunter pair and soon they found Thealon outside one of the Phantoms, SlipShap and a huragok beside him.

He nodded as they approached and waved them into the vehicle, "We just dropped out of Slip-Space, we'll head for the landing zone when we enter orbit. Ruby, are stealth systems on?" he asked loudly looking up, he raised a hand to an earpiece and nodded. He was the last one aboard the ship, standing next to the gravity lift as the ship took off and headed for the planet, the ship began to shake a bit against the atmosphere.

"So Thealon," Vlad said over the shaking, "what's the plan?"

"We'll set down and look around, we'll wait until our guests are in atmosphere and on their way before activating active camouflage, I don't want to take any chances," he shifted a bit and looked at SlipShap, the huragok, and the hunter pair. "You four, when I give the word I want you two," he said pointing to the hunter pair, "to escort SlipShap and the huragok out of the ship but no further, I don't want them to panic but I want them to see we mean business if they do anything. And you two, I want you two near me when we are negotiating, Too Light," he said to the huragok, "you'll get the data for the translation software. SlipShap," the unggoy straightened, "I want you near me, if they don't understand something I want you as a translator."

"I won't let you down sir," he said saluting, his large arm smacking into his forehead causing him to stumble a bit, he shook it off and nodded. Too Light chirped happily and the hunters grumbled something, it'll do.

The pilot called from up front a while after the chop stopped, "We're almost above the landing zone," a deep voice called from up front, most likely an elite.

Thealon nodded and checked his side for his sword and plasma pistol, he looked around the group, Ellenor pulled out a new rifle, seemed like a sniper of sorts, Vlad pulled out a battle rifle, and Sloan just checked his battle rifle before nodding to him. Drex pulled out a plasma carbine and Kamau drew his modified plasma repeater. The ship lurched slightly and there was a knocking from the cabin, Thealon nodded and waved everyone to follow, the gravity lift activated and he stepped onto it, being lowered to the ground slowly.

He landed on the dusty ground and looked around the scenery as he inspected the land before him. There was a small mountain of rocks, he could place Ellenor up there if he needed to, it was about 350 feet out but it'll be a good strategic point if things went bad. He heard feet hit the ground and glanced over his shoulder to see the Spartan trio walking out of the beam, closely followed by Kamau and Drex.

"Alright, Ellenor, I want you on that cropping of rocks if I give you the signal to, open fire, and if things are alright look for me to call you over." The woman nodded and began the fairly long run to the rocks, Thealon turned to the rest of them. "Alright, Kamau and Vlad, I want you two right next to me, Drex and Sloan, I want you spread out a bit, if I can avoid casualties if absolutely necessary then that's good. We get them surrounded and if we need to take a hostage then I want Sloan grabbing them, got it?" he said, they nodded as all of them began their walk out.

"Youtel, I want the ship cloaked, we'll be about a 100 feet out, I want it patched to me directly if you get something from the ship," Thealon said through his comm. to the pilot, a green light winked on. "Alright people get into positions, wait for me to give the order to activate camouflage, better get comfortable, who knows how long we're gonna be here," he said loudly. The surface was fairly warm for its distance to the sun, hopefully they could use that as cover when in camo. They hadn't detected any life signs on the planet nearby their zone, there was some, but hopefully they'll let them be until then.

* * *

><p>Daniel held his seat as the ship decelerated from FTL, near the place where the anomaly occurred, there didn't seem to be much here. He frowned a bit, it was nothing more of a let down, it was something to do and since it was nothing it ended their fancy adventure pretty quickly, faster than he had hoped, but what could you do?<p>

"Guess it was nothing after all," he said with a disappointed sigh, "mark it off as nothing and let's head back to our sector," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

The batarian seemed pretty disappointed but he suddenly leaned forward, looking closely at his monitor, "Don't you know that can fry ya eyes?" the human beside him said with a smug grin at his small victory over the four-eye.

"No, there's…there's something there, it looks like…debris," he said inspecting his finding carefully.

Daniel rolled his eyes, "Oh how interesting, before you know it you're gonna tell me it was geth," he said.

"Actually, the ships are geth…and judging from the amount of them and the amount of eezo drifting around here, I'd say there was a small battle here, about twenty ships. And recent too, I got what seems like a trail of eezo that looks like someone jumped out of the system, if I were to guess, a ship got damaged and tried to jump." The batarian seemed pretty pleased with himself.

"That's a load of bull, sure there are maybe some geth debris, but who's to say where they went," his human antagonist pestered him.

"Well think about it, you moron, if there's a ship jumped systems then it most likely was either damaged or on it's own, and may I add it'll be a fairly small ship. If it is geth we take them out, take their ship and the quarians are a system over, who knows what they'll pay for that kind of tech."

"And what if it's not damaged, what if it's not even geth, what then?"

"Well all I'm picking up is geth ships and a small ship's eezo trail, our ship is well large enough to handle a lone geth ship even if it is fully functional, and I'm sure the slavers on Elohi will appreciate a larger work force," the batarian said with a smile.

The whole time Dan had been listening closely to the whole argument, deciding what he should do as he was slowly convinced by the batarians points. "Where did they jump to?" he asked suddenly, the two looked over at him, the rest of the bridges crew seeming to not pay any attention.

"Well if I were to guess, it's an uncharted system, but close to the Micah system, right…," the batarian said glancing at his console, "Yeah, somewhere around there."

Daniel debated it for a moment before reaching his final verdict, "Alright, do you know exactly where they went?"

"Well maybe not exactly, but I can get the system," he said.

Dan slowly nodded, "Alright, upload it to what's-his-face over there and let's set out," he said finally, sitting up a bit. Maybe they can get something out of this, with the batarian's points he was convinced they could pull this off, whoever was in that small ship was fucked and they didn't even know it.

* * *

><p>Tali waited in the cargo bay next to the dropship with Reg, Lan, and a small group of marines, there was about six of them. After a minute she felt the ship come out of FTL, stumbling slightly before she regained her balance and opened the hatch, the others walked in while she waited for her father. He came down a couple minutes later, nodding to her as he passed.<p>

"So far, of what we can tell, they haven't arrived yet so we'll wait in orbit for them to do so," her father said to everyone in the small ship as Lan and Reg expertly pulled the ship out of the cargo bay and into the planets atmosphere.

"I wonder how they use FTL," one of the marines beside Tali said after a while as he looked out a window into open space. Though he wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, Tali decided to pass the time and start up a conversation.

"Who knows, must not be too good though, we've been in orbit for about ten minutes now and there's no sign of them yet," she said, the marine nodded with a shrug.

But oh how wrong she was, "Sir, we…we got a message incoming, it's not from the Alarei…"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you to all who have read this far. Because I know it'll be hard to visualize them in armor I'm using armor that is so far known, i.e. the pre-order armor. So currently what I've got is Sloan in steel and dark red Venator armor, with the raptor skin, Ellenor in dark blue oceanic armor with a yellow secondary, with the circuit skin, and a deadeye helmet, and Vlad in what I would label as normal GUNGIR armor and a locust helmet, red primary and white secondary without the pulse skin. here's a link; . <strong>

**Also, though I'm not known to do this, if you guys want to submit some I'm open to OC's for either universe. No guarantees as to when or if they'll be used but I'll make a template when I think of something, check in here or I might post it in the next chapter or just separately, just check back in a day or two to see what I've decided if you're interested. Thanks again and R&R.**


	6. OC Chart

Persecution Complex (OC chart)

Universe; {ME or Halo}

Race; {self explanatory}

Sex; {Male, Female, indistinguishable}

Name; {self explanatory}

Age; {I like these kinds of parenthesis}

Eye color; {race pending}

Hair color; {if human, style {short, curly, etc…}}

Skin color; {or armor/environment suit, primary and secondary}

Rank; {if military}

Profession; {job if civilian if they have one, engineer, soldier, etc…}

Interests; {likes to blow stuff up, long walks on the beach}

Personality; {Silent type, caring, will kill you in a heartbeat, etc…}

Physic; {well built, small, tall, etc…}

Unique physicals; {Scars per-say}

Relationships; {single, on break, widowed, in one, hetro-/homo-sexual {will not be judged by me}}

History; {would like a background hopefully, maybe not a long one but enough for development around said history}

Preferred weapon; {Shotgun, distance weapons, etc…}

Weapons on person; {what they like to go place to place to, can be different than preferred weapon, can be equipment}

Special forces?; {Spectres, SpecOps {for elites}, ODST} {if in} {Not, I repeat NOT, taking Spartans}

Armor/clothing; {preferred favorite, wears often, from time to time, fine with more than one}

Weakness; {no one is perfect, what makes your character so, whether medical condition or personality}

Strengths; {what makes your character strong, what is it that they wear as a shield}

* * *

><p>{Example}<p>

Universe; Halo

Race; Sangheili {race name doesn't need to be known}

Sex; Male

Name; Kamau'Orthel

Age; 86 {expect to change}

Eye color; black

Hair color; none

Skin color; dark purple {Sticking with pre-Halo 4 elite look}

Rank; Field master/Ranger

Profession; Ranger, strategist, soldier/infiltrator

Interests; EVA work, being in space, a read from time to time

Personality; generally quiet, thinks things out, quick with a blade, forgiving to a point, respects ones foe…pending, pangs of guilt from time to time

Physic; 7' 11" average build

Unique physical; Scar along left eye, hard to tell due to helmet

Relationships; had wife and one child, died during Covenant uprising, remained unmarried since then

History; Participated in Great war. Was nearly youngest Zealot in history at the age of 45, soon his skill was recognized and was put in charge of his own group of Rangers, though not full fledged field master he was well known for being extremely successful on and off the ground, his group has one of the highest mortality rate out of most ground and ranger groups. Fought in the battle of Reach, was recorded being seen in most major battles and attack strategies from the humans, [RECORDED EVENTS] first contact, was seen leaving a seen with valuable data after possibly killing a family within their house, the group he was with {1 officer and several unggoy} killed by noble team. Was suspected to be disguised as normal ranger troop on the attack on ONI base: Sword, reason for presence unknown. Was seen by noble 3 and 6 talking to a general before disappearing. Upon the attack on Covenant shield generator, noble six got into his first of several firefights with Kamau in which Kamau had a fuel rod cannon and forced six into cover before mysteriously disappearing. Was second in command of ship Long Night on Solace, was put in charge after the death of its Ship Master but was evacuated by his squad who held off noble team for their leader and friend to escape, suspected he took a drop pod and made his way to new Alexandria where he was evac'd into a banshee by ground forces, destination unknown. Was later responsible for the death of noble 2 by a headshot using a needle rifle, his phantom escaped before city was glassed. He reportedly returned to Sword base but failed to retrieve whatever it was he was looking for. He was lastly seen hunting down noble six near the launch site of the Pillar of Autumn, soon he succeeded in his mission and ended Noble Six's life with his energy sword. He rejoined Thealon after the attack and served under him for several years before they split up at the destruction of Beta Halo, the fourth to be found. After, he tried to return to his family, he returned to his home to find his family dead, killed by loyalists, still to this day he blames himself for their death but has not taken up another wife despite many offers from eager fathers. He fell off the grid for some time before being contacted by Drex'Yulta and being reemployed under Thealon's command. {doesn't need to be this long but felt like covering reach}

Preferred weapon; Energy Sword, Focus Rifle, energy blades {hidden blades it you will}, generally close or long range preferred

Weapons on person; energy sword, focus rifle, plasma pistol, modified plasma repeater, several plasma grenades, active camouflage, suit with ability to change color to hide rank or blend with surrounding, strengthened personal shield.

Special forces?; yes, SpecOps/Ranger

Armor/Clothing; golden primary and secondary Ranger armor with chameleon ability

Weakness; known to have pangs of guilt, not a very good driver, not a very good conversationalist, careless for own life when others depend on him

Strengths; careless for own life when others depend on him, has a soft side if you dig deep into his hard shell

* * *

><p>This is purely for those who think they might like to take a crack at an OC and I'll see what I can do, I'll work on the next chapter shortly but this will be taken down eventually I think, depends on how many people try it. Though i may use it for myself as i had an interesting time understanding my own OC in doing so. come on people I know with all the favs I'm getting you guys are interested but with so little reviews if it weren't for the fact I just simply can't get this off my mind and love typing this up I'm hesitant towards if you guys are really interested, we'll see where it goes.<p> 


	7. Chapter 6

Persecution Complex Ch. 6

"We are here and waiting," when she thought about it, the message gave Tali a chill.

"Well then…I guess we should go meet them. Are the scans picking up anything?" her father asked Lan, who responded by shaking his head.

"Our sensors are clear, and I don't see anything. Guess you were wrong huh, Tali," he remarked. She gave him a look and returned to seat rolling her eyes.

The marine who had previously inquired with her watched her as she sat back down beside him. "Makes you wonder how advanced they are though," he muttered quietly. Tali looked over at the young quarian, he looked pretty nervous, not that he didn't deserve to be, but he seemed a bit more so than the others.

"What's your name?" she asked him, he tensed a little.

"Sel'Atourn nar Retura," he said shifting a bit in his seat as the ship hit turbulence.

She looked at him curiously, "Not even out of your Pilgrimage and they already have you serving the marines?"

He shrugged, "Well I volunteered, and besides, it's not like we had a full squad of experienced marines like most ships, we were just the back up security force more than anything. And it just so happens our squad got picked," he said with a sigh and looking around for a moment before returning his attention to her. "I don't think I'm the only one who's on their first military run," he whispered to her, if things got sour that could be bad. She trusted everyone's training, every quarian got at least the same training, some better than most, but that doesn't mean they could pull the trigger if they needed to.

But she placed a reassuring hand on the young boys shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm sure everything will be fine," she said feeling like she was partially telling it to herself as the ship landed with a _thump_. He nodded and she patted his shoulder before unfastening her seat belt and standing. She walked over to the door as one of the marines opened it and stepped out, she followed after her father had hopped out, the rest of the marines and the two pilots treading behind her. It was something of a deserty place, there wasn't any wind so there was no fear of a sand storm or anything, it was mostly just flat save a couple outcroppings of rocks in the distance and one about 300-400 feet, and it was somewhat hot out.

Rael looked around before turning to Lan and Reg, "Are we in the right place?" he asked and Lan pulled out a datapad. Tali looked around, something catching her eye for a brief instant, when she snapped back around there was nothing there. She squinted her eyes and saw what looked like a heat wave, maybe she was just seeing things, but curiosity got the better of her as she crept closer to the spot. Her hand hovered over her pistol as she drew closer, she soon realized that with each step closer she took the mirage seemed to get bigger until she stopped right in front of it.

"Tali," he father called, she held up her hand and then moved it forward as if to touch the mirage, "Tali!" her father called a bit harsher. She looked over at him a moment before turning to see a giant figure standing before her, two inches from her hand, he must have been more than seven feet tall.

She jumped back with a squeak, what she assumed passed for a grin showed on his four mandibles, "Calm and observant, you have a potential girl," he said in his somewhat deep voice. He bowed his head slightly, "Tali'Zorah, respectively, my apologizes if I startled you, my name is Thealon should you have forgotten," he said calmly despite having the weapons of all six quarian marines on him. He looked at them, "I would not think pointing weapons at the people you trying to make peace with is a very good way to kick off a meeting, Rael. Especially when out-strategized," Tali straightened as she felt a hand on her shoulder and a muzzle pressed between her shoulder blades.

A voice ever the quietest whispered in her ear, "Don't worry, I don't plan on hurting you as long as your friends don't shoot," it reassured her calmly as she was forced to back up. The voice was a males, and it seemed…human.

"Tali?" her father asked cautiously as she was backed out of the line of fire in case something did happen. She looked at her shoulder and saw that the light seemed to bend around it, so this was how their stealth suits worked.

"Rael I would like this to go peacefully if you would please lower your weapons," he said raising his hand and signaling something, or someone. All the figures previously cloaked faded into existence wielding various weapons Tali had never seen before. There were four figures in total, the one holding Tali included, all were bipedal and two of them looked like humans while the other two appeared to be the same race as Thealon. The two that seemed like humans, one beside Thealon and one holding her, were taller than usual and wore very strange armor. Of the two like Thealon, one also beside him and one across from where Tali was, the one beside him reminded her of a quarian almost despite his obvious bulk. He had a gold environmental suit of sorts and had an opaque visor.

She looked them all over quickly, glancing over her shoulder at the one holding her very briefly, he had dark grey and red armor with two very tight visor openings to look out. The other human like figure had a helmet also that covered his features but his was red and white, his helmet with no trace of a visor at all, how he saw things was beside her. The figure across from her had dark armor with a black colored secondary, the colors not fully distinguishable in the light. A common trait she saw was that they were all seven feet tall, including the humans!

"Listen, we're lost and as I said we are recovering still from a terrible war, we don't need another, just lower your weapons," Thealon said lifting a hand and lowering it. Tali felt the muzzle pull away and the hand come from her shoulder as the other three figures lowered their guns but did not put them away. "Is this going to be an issue Rael?"

"They were just startled," he said angrily looking at the marines, some of whom lowered their heads, "My apologies Thealon. Please, I don't want any trouble, so why don't we jump into this peace treaty," he said.

Thealon nodded, "Thank you, I apologize for possibly…extreme measures but I needed to make sure this wasn't a trap of some sort." He raised his hand and waved something over, in the distance Tali could see a figure in blue climbing down the rocks, a sniper if she were to guess. "Now if you wouldn't mind, I will call my translators over," he reached up to his ear and said something quietly as Tali went to join her father.

She heard a couple marines speaking quietly, "I wonder how they got here," one said, the other shrugged, there wasn't a ship in sight so it would be hard to tell where they landed it. But apparently in plain sight was the best way because as soon as Thealon lowered his hand he looked over his shoulder and a purple ship with a design none of them had ever seen before came into view, like it just faded into existence. They had stealth tech like that for their ships too! Who knew what they were capable of.

The ship hovered about fifty feet off the ground and Tali saw the sides of it open and two huge hulking beasts in blue armor with giant shields on their left arms walked over to it, they weren't seriously planning on jumping out were they? And they did, without hesitation they ran up with lumbering steps and jumped out of the ship, landing with massive thuds and kicking up huge amounts of dust, they weren't seriously the translators were they?

Thankfully she saw a white light form below the ship and two figures were lowered to the ground, one was small with stunted legs, large arms, and a large hump on his back with a breathing apparatus. The other looked like a hanar almost except it had six eyes and floated off the ground, both of them walking and floating over as the other beasts kept their distance by just watching the exchange from where they landed, thankfully.

They all waited until the others came over and to her, and the others she assumed with how they looked at it, surprise, it greeted them in khelish, their language! He had a very squeaky voice though, the other one just made a purring sound and closed its eyes as it did something of a bow.

"This is SlipShap, and in case your wondering, yes, he is already well versed in your language, their race is very keen to learning new languages," Thealon said waving a hand to the small fellow. "And this is our huragok, Too Light, don't ask about the name, he is excellent with technology so he'll mainly be here for the translation software. And speaking of which, right now only the three of us currently will know what you're saying so if you could just give it to us and allow this to be better understand what you're saying."

Rael nodded and turned to Tali, she raised her arm and activated her omni-tool, when it popped up the huragok purred and tilted its head like a curious animal. Thealon held out a hand slightly and the animal hung its head a bit and back up with a disappointed look about it. "This may be primitive of us, but we're going to require a more hard copy of it, perhaps a datapad of sorts," Thealon asked and Tali nodded and got out a blank datapad and uploaded the software to it before walking it over.

The huragok met her and grabbed it with its tentacles, also going over her wrist, she saw it break apart into what looked like cilia and quickly felt over where her omni-tool was. She pulled her arm back quickly but it seemed satisfied at something and floated away and began to tamper with the datapad. Tali just gripped her wrist wondering what it had done as it fiddled with a couple ear pieces and handed them to all the other figures around except for SlipShap, strange as the small creatures name was she had heard of far stranger ones.

Out of curiosity she checked her omni-tool to find it was still working, nothing she noticed had changed, she was beginning to wonder when everyone began talking again. "Thank you for your cooperation, I apologize this hasn't gone as formal as I had liked, but if there is any precious information you would like to share before we do it would be appreciated. Perhaps which part of this galaxy your species inhabit, hostiles besides these geth we were attacked by beforehand?"

Rael nodded, "Yes, we have some things, but why don't you go first if you wouldn't mind," he said as politely as possible.

Thealon nodded, "I understand, as we probably have more important things to talk about anyway," he added, though none of them really understood what he meant. "I am a Sangheili from the planet Sangheilios, as are my comrades you see here," he said gesturing to the other two like him, the sniper on the rocks finally walking up beside him. "This is Kamau'Orthel, he is a well respected Field Master to my race, that is Drex'Yulta, an Ultra and good friend of mine. And for the pressing matter at hand, the humans in my group, Vlad," the man in the red and white armor nodded, "Sloan," the one that held Tali nodded as well, "and Ellenor," he said gesturing to the woman beside him, she nodded too.

"They seem much larger than the humans we know," Rael said curiously.

Thealon nodded, "I sadly cannot go into detail about it but know where I come from humans are not normally this tall."

"What do you mean 'where you're from,' all humans are from earth or born on colonies?" Tali asked the large creature.

"That is…one of the things we were trying to figure out, I cannot go into detail but we were testing experimental technology, and…well…we were on a mission to help a distressed colony, when we got here, not even all the planets, including the one we were looking for was there. We'll give you an old copy of our star maps, but you'll find them…useless here," he said, his voice was keenly hiding something, though it wasn't obvious he seemed distressed on the matter.

"Mind clarifying?" Rael asked with a bit of stern worry in his voice.

Thealon sighed, "We are not from here, we think that during a malfunction in our technology we ended up in your…reality. Do not ask me to explain I don't, and don't think I ever will, understand, please just try to go with," he said causing everyone, excluding the three Sangheili, SlipShap, and Too Light, froze or straitened. Apparently he hadn't informed the three humans with him.

Rael thought of words to say, looking back at the quarians behind him, "I…I don't…you're right, that is a bit hard to understand…I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything, we just need updated star maps and some information on where we are," he replied calmly.

Rael nodded and Tali sent a copy of all the known star maps to the datapad that Too Light had, he chirped and gave it to Thealon, "You can keep it, I can always get another," Tali said and he nodded before handing back to the huragok.

"Also we quarians aren't the only space-faring race in the galaxy, we'll give you coordinates of important places you should go to and everything, Tali send them a copy of a full codex would you," she nodded and did what he asked. "Good, now if-," Rael began but was cut off by Vlad, who had, for a minute, backed off and held a hand up to his helmet.

"Sir, a ship has entered the system, it looks like a war vessel judging from its size and is not geth," he said, Thealon turned to look at them with a small growl and had a whispered conversation with the human.

"Rael, care explaining?" he asked with a bit of hostility in his voice.

Tali tensed and she saw a couple of the marines tighten their grip on their guns, "I don't know, we don't, shouldn't have anything to do with this-," he was cut off by his omni-tool pinging.

He lifted it, it was the acting captain, "Rael, a blue suns ship just entered the system and is heading right for us, what should we do?" he asked frantically.

Rael cursed and turned to the marines, "Get ready, it's too risky taking off, they can just blow us right out of the sky. Reqeal," he said to the acting captain, "activate stealth systems and try to hid behind the nearest moon if you can, we don't wan them seeing you." The quarian nodded.

"Sir, we just detected five shuttles leaving the ship, you should get ready," he said and the connection cut out.

"Bosh'tet," Rael said and paced for a moment before seeing Thealon staring at him, "Blue Suns are a well known gang of mercenaries and killers, if your team here is up to it, we're going to be in for one hell of a firefight," he said.

Thealon continued his stare and Rael shifted uncomfortably before Thealon looked back at his ship, or the two beasts below it. "It'll take them several minutes to get here," he said returning his gaze to them, "Give me a moment," he said and began giving orders to all of his troops. SlipShap and Too Light went back to the ship, the light lifting them off the ground and taking them into the ship, the two creatures taking their place. "We may be able to give you assistance, take your pilots and have them take their ship and follow ours, as well as maybe yourself and your daughter, we don't want any civilian casualties," he said.

Tali stepped up, "I am not a civilian, I can handle myself," she said proudly and Thealon stared into her pearly eyes.

He smirked, "Confidence too huh, let's make sure that won't cost you," he looked at Rael, "get yourself and your ship to safety, I'll have my troops and yours holding off these Blue Suns. As soon as their ships get back to their hangar they're in for a nasty surprise."

* * *

><p>Dan sat straighter as he saw their exploration was not in vain, a quarian ship, certainly not a warship from its size, sat in orbit around the planet. "Good, and to think I almost was doubting you what's-your-face," he said to the batarian, who was visibly aggravated by this.<p>

"Leduan, my name is Leduan. Humans," he said but ignored it from that point as he saw his theory was right.

"Well let's see our effort bare fruit, sack it," Dan said and the bridge visibly livened as some of the crew talked about laying on the stupid quarians as their ship closed in.

"They activated their stealth systems, they aren't showing on the scanners but as long as we can see them we should be good," someone said, Dan decided to make a goal of learning peoples names after this raid. Oh how he would have made his granny proud, finally getting around to doing shit.

"Hey boss, we got some stuff planet-side, seems like they dropped a ship off to survey the area or something."

Dan thought about it for a moment, "Send the Kodiak's in after them and do whatever they want to whoever's down there. Have, ah what's his name, Tom, yeah have Tom lead the operation," he said and someone nodded and used the intercom to tell some of the guys to get ready and they had five shuttles go to the ground. Maybe a bit of overkill, but who knew how many of the bucket heads were down there or what kind of hostile life was there.

Well enough of that, now the fun starts, they were closing in on the quarian ship and while it may be a little faster, they were closing the gap and all it would take is one EMP blast and they were out. He chuckled and sat back as the ship tried to get behind the closest moon, a sound strategy if they hadn't already been seen.

"Alright people, show time, let's bag us some bucket heads."

* * *

><p>Tali sat crouched next to Sloan and Thealon on the rock formation he had Ellenor hide on earlier as the previously white clouds grew darker and darker and while the air was breathable it was impossible to know if it had toxic storms like some planets. She looked around, Thealon's men looked much, much more experience than the quarian marines as they snapped to their orders instantly and expertly. Ellnor sat further up the small formation with the strangest sniper rifle Tali had ever seen, well most of the weapons they had were beyond bazaar.<p>

Sloan had pulled out a purple rifle as compared to the old looking silver pistol he had before, and he still had a black rifle on his back, by the looks of it their weapons didn't fold up but they could still hold a couple weapons on their person. Thealon himself though had pulled out some grey rifle that had literally floated together, he just took a small pack off his back, around the same place Tali kept her shotgun, and before what was just a small rectangular box burst apart and assembled itself in his hands. It had a floating scope and was kinda red in places, if she were to guess it was either a sniper or an assault rifle.

Kamau had pulled out a long blue rifle also, if she were to guess it was also a sniper rifle but it seemed strange to have so many sniper rifles, but then Shepard was a collector of sorts and had about 25 different sniper rifles on the Normandy before it exploded. She hung her heard a bit and closed her eyes as she let out a sigh that just spoke her feelings as she kept in tears. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked at Sloan, he looked at her, it was impossible to see his face.

"I'm okay, I promise," she said and he nodded and patted her shoulder reassuringly as she tried to compose herself, whenever she thought about it she just felt so many feelings at once it was just overwhelming sometimes. It was almost inspiring how concentrated, composed, and patient the newcomers were, the humans Thealon had with him seemed almost in their element with weapons in their hand waiting for the enemy to arrive. Drex was next to Thealon and a couple quarian marines dotted the rock formation, Kamau sat next to a very uncomfortable Sel as he looked at the large, quarian looking Sangheili.

Drex was the only one standing besides the hunters, as they were called, who sat behind two rocks large enough to hide them and the spikes on their backs. Drex had a large blue gun that could sit firmly on his shoulder, it must have been a heavy weapon but what exactly it did Tali had no clue but he had a gun like the one Sloan had as well as a small piece of metal on his thigh all the Sangheili had.

She shifted a bit as she heard a quiet whistled tune from Ellenor and they all looked up to see the clouds now even darker then before, after a minute all five shuttles burst through the clouds. Drex watched them for a moment before hiding behind the rock all four of them were using as cover, Tali waited for the sound of the ships landing, closing her eyes and listening closely, she couldn't hear anything but the ships, not even Thealon's or Sloan's breathing.

When she heard the ship touch down Drex shot up and charged the blue gun, four petals popping out and rotating as troops poured out of the five ships and saw the blue light. Before any of them could shoot though, Drex let go of the trigger, four glowing blue balls flew through the air quickly, three stuck one of the ships and another hit a soldier in the chest, the force of it pushing him back and continuing to do so as it stuck to him. They all screamed and blew up in the order they were fired, the ship never stood a chance as it tried to take off, the first shaking the ship, the second causing it to rupture, and the third destroying the cockpit causing it to take out another ship and crush about seven men. The guy that was stuck exploded and took three others down with him, well two, the last had an arm and leg blown off.

Drex was down as soon as all the shots were fired and had pulled out his rifle, there were five ships and each had about ten guys in it, so about 50 guys. Seven from the ships and four from the other grenade meant there were still probably 39 left and none of them had cover in the open desert but all tried to find what cover they could as they ran toward the rock formation. They didn't know they were running right into the two hunters, but in the mean time they were free for the picking as they ran and gunned trying to hit anyone they could by filling the air with bullets.

Ellenor fired first, the shot taking half a second to charge before it flew through the air and slammed a guy into the dirt, the shot destroying his shields and head. Everyone else fired when they could, Kamau standing out as his rifle fired a bright steady beam into the group, the shields not even able to stop any of it as it melted armor and flesh. In fact almost all their weapons seemed to be just decimating them, like the shields didn't even stop anything as it just decimated the approaching force.

Tali couldn't really do much but support with a pistol and some tech powers, chucking an incinerate here and there, but it didn't do much but slow a couple down enough to be the primary target. She noticed how well the team communicated, sure the quarians did pretty good despite their experience, but if it weren't for these guys, there wouldn't have only been 12 guys left by the time the hunters came out of cover and charged the ones that were left, and then things got real interesting.

At that point it was just up to Thealon, Kamau, and Ellenor to pick off anyone who got too far away from the hunters for fear of hitting the hulking beasts. Tali learned Thealon's weapon was similar to the viper except it didn't really fire as fast but sure as heck had punch to it. Tali watched as the hunters right arms glowed green as it charged whatever their arm cannons fired. Two large green blots fired from the creatures and caused huge explosions, sadly only killing three guys as the group had panicked a bit and spread about, but there was no ignoring the sheer power of each shot, and the fact that the creatures arms was forced back a bit with the recoil just went to show.

But then things got interesting as the remaining nine, Ellenor fired a shot, eight, drew closer the beasts charged, one of them swatting one of the mercs aside with his shield so hard the guy was just sent flying as it raised its arm up and crushed another trooper with the same arm, turning and nearly chopping another guy in half as it swung its arm around and down. Five left as the other got to another group and they tried to circle it to try get a shot off on its exposed back, its only apparent weakness as they fired at its impenetrable shield. One circled around and raised his gun to be sent smashing into the dirt due to Ellenor. The beast faked out one of the mercenaries, seemingly coming from the left with its shield to end it in an uppercut, sending the guy into the air, only to be grabbed by its three small fingers and slammed into the ground. It spun to the right and impaled a guy on the tip of its shield due to the force sent into the attack, one of the last ones tried to circle around but was sliced apart by the creatures back spikes. The last merc was knocked down and tried to crawl away as Thealon slid down the rocks to a stop right in front of him.

He lifted the merc off the ground with one hand as the rifle folded back into a rectangle that he put on his back and pulled the piece of metal off his thigh. The merc struggled against the death grip, beating the arm and its owner as Thealon snapped his arm down, a white energy blade sparking to life as rain began to finally fall, thankfully it was just normal water but it came down fairly hard. The light of the blade was the only thing she really saw as Thealon drew it back and stabbed the merc clear through the chest as easy as…what was the human saying, a hot knife through butter? Everyone was basically on ground level as Thealon withdrew the blade and dropped the merc on the ground, he looked over everyone as the rain came down before looking up.

He took a deep breath and looked at Tali, he walked up to her and she looked up at him as he stopped about a foot away from her, his group of Sangheili and humans walking past him. "Call your father and tell him we're done here," she nodded and sent the message to her father as he checked over everyone for any injuries, none were recalled.

"What kind of weapons were those, they just tore through those Blue Suns?" she asked as she walked up beside him and looked over the seen of destruction as everyone joked, talked, or checked the dead.

"Plasma mostly, except Ellenor's that's a new one, if I were to guess it's a miniaturized mass accelerator," he said and she looked at him baffled.

"You have plasma weapons?" she was astounded by such advancement in technology, it was way ahead of their own mass round technology. It again raised the question of how the got around in space.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, even that was visible in the heavy rain, she wiped her visor so she could see him more clearly. "Yes, I would assume, judging by your reaction, that is not a feat yet accomplished here?" he asked, she nodded heavily to emphasize it. He raised his hand to his ear and a finger to silence her for a moment, he nodded and lowered his hand and looked up at the clouds, "Well while this didn't go the way I had necessarily as well as I hoped, at least we got one ally in this new place. Thank you for assisting us while you did, and may I also add I would like to see our paths meet again one day Tali'Zorah, it has been a pleasure meeting you and your race. My regards, take care of yourselves," he said as the ships arrived, his crew being sucked up the white beam.

He held out a hand to her and she looked at the four fingered hand, she took it and gripped it firmly and shook it, he smiled again and nodded before stepping into the light and standing straight, his hands going behind his back as he was lifted off the ground. Tali watched as he disappeared into the ship and it closed the hole and took off to space. She watched it as it disappeared into the clouds.

"Keelah, I hope not all negotiations with new species go that badly," she said and climbed into the shuttle.

* * *

><p>Dan heard the whole thing as it happened from his seat on the bridge, all the radio chatter from all fifty of them played as he watched the screens.<p>

"We're touching down now, so far nothing in sight but I would guess they're in those rocks over there." "We're on the ground, hey what the hell is that blue light?" "Shit! Shoot it, shoot it now!" four blue balls flew through the air and Dan leaned forward, what the hell kind of gun was that? He watched from the point of views of one of the mercs who dove aside from the slightly slow moving projectiles, one of them not being so lucky as it tracked him and stuck to his chest and caused him to get pushed continuously by it.

Dan was completely caught in the moment till there was an explosion, a ship had gotten hit by the glowing balls, and while they didn't explode on contact they screamed loudly and stuck to whatever they touched. When they did explode though, those ships had reinforced hulls, and it boiled and sent the ship off course as it exploded, the second nearly sheared the ship in half and the last destroyed the cockpit, the destroyed ship crashed into another and cut both their feeds. The poor soul who was stuck was slightly dragged into another group and blew three of them apart as the ships got the hell out of there.

Then the real killing frenzy started, the Blue Sun that Dan was focusing on the most's screen suddenly was washed out by static and automatically closed. He quickly switched his eyes to another screen as he saw the mans head explode and was sent slamming into the ground, another being thrown into the remains of one of the flaming ships. "Sniper!" "The only cover is in the rocks head for the—AGH!" a bright yellow and red beam came flying from the rocks and nearly cut a guy in half, melting the guy wherever it struck. "What the fuck kind of weapons are these fucking quarians using?" "Are our shields not working, I just caught one in the side and my shield was full!" "We're fucked man we're-," whatever weapons the quarians were using were firing very strangely, Dan had never seen shots like that before, especially the freaking laser.

"I'm almost at the rocks…what the fuck are those!" Dan switched his eyes over the views, there were only about 12 of the troops left and the screens were just dropping to static constantly. He saw two hulking beasts with blue armor, giant shields, and glowing green arms, he was wondering why they were glowing when suddenly they both fired and two green blots of energy went flying at the group, three screens were succumbed to static.

"Sir the shuttles have just arrived and are being prepped for reinforcements," Dan was about to say screw it when another member of the bridge cried out.

"Sir," his voice was grave, "we've just picked up another ship by the quarian one, it's…it's…" Dan looked at the screens.

"Massive," he finished as a giant purple ship moved in front of the quarian ship, hiding it behind its massive size. "Fire, fire all weapons now!" he shouted and he watched as the mass accelerators fired their bolts constantly, a blue wave of energy he assumed was a shield barely flickered with each impact. Three spots on the hull glowed a blinding purple before letting loose three massive balls of energy, but they were slow, easily dodge-able, if they could outrun its attacks they could win this.

"Quick, move us out of the way," he said and the ship easily moved out of the shots paths, until they readjusted their course.

"Sir the shots are tracking us."

"I fucking noticed!" he shouted, "shoot the fuckers, shoot them down!" the shots fired right into what would be the middle of the bolts, nothing happened. He frantically searched the battleground, a moon, they could reach the moon, it was small as fuck but would at least stop two of the blasts. "Get us behind the moon, quickly!"

"This piece of shit of a ship can only move so fast, calm down!" Dan sat back and nearly started chewing his fingernails as the shit got behind the moon, he took a deep breath. It was a small moon, only a couple kilometers, and as the second shot hit it, it literally just exploded, leaving a clear path for the last one to hit them in the bottom section of the shit. Alarms sounded and the bridge got about twenty degrees hotter as the shot ate through the ship and boiled the hull.

"Sections D-I are gone, closing the hull, the fuck kind of shot was that, our kinetic barriers didn't even stop an ounce of that shot!" someone on the bridge shouted, the bridges crew was quickly turning to chaos.

"Why the fuck is it so hot?"

"I surrender, send them a fucking message or something, I don't want to die!"

"The ship, it's moving, someone send it a fucking surrender message now!"

"Communications are scrambled, what the hell kind of shot was that!"

"Engines are failing, we're dead, dead in space and just flat out fucking dead!"

Dan sat back and watched as the ship faced them a large light glowing on the bottom of a large bump in the front. Several members pulled out guns on themselves and killed themselves, but Dan could only watch as a great beam of purple light split through space and destroyed the hull, eating through the ship till the hull and engines were consumed before the ship detonated.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hello everyone, thank you for reading this far and everything, I appreciate those who sent in submissions for the OC thing, all two of you, none the less they are pretty though out characters and I'll see what I can do.<strong>

** I apologize for my fail negotiation skills in which it sucked complete and udder donkey balls. I'm sorry if some of this made no sense, lately I've had really bad writers block as to what to do with this chapter but finally got something down, as bad as it is. But hey, I think everything I writes sucks so go figure, anyway in case you were wondering the last beam at the end was an energy projector/the laser that glasses planets, best known for being used by supercarriers, they can be used in space combat to be fired from an angle. Again I apologize if some of this makes no sense, but I'm trying here, I would appreciate some reviews, constructive criticism or otherwise. I will be adding some OC charts for my own and possibly some submitted when a new one is added to the story. Again, thank you for getting this far, please review, and check back into the OC chart every now and then if you want some back story to some of my characters.**


	8. Chapter 7

Persecution Complex Ch. 7

Thealon, Vlad, Kamau, and everyone else dropped out of the phantom and walked toward the armory to return their weapons. Thealon stopped by the doorway out of the hangar, he handed Drex the datapad to be taken to the bridge and he nodded. Thealon waited for everyone to file out except Kamau, who he caught by the arm.

"Kamau, a word," he whispered looking around the hangar as the Ranger looked with him and nodded, Thealon motioned him to follow. The two Sangheili walked and whispered between the two of them as they were tailed from the shadows. "Kamau, I fear…I…I am lost brother, I don't know what I can do in this situation. Our race is now numbered like never before, our planet is…gone, our friends and family are gone and my crew is all I have left. One false move and I end all of us, I just…don't know…"

Kamau remained silent as he listened, and when the older Sangheili finished he placed a hand on his shoulder, "Friend, brother, you have survived the flood, you have seen the beginning and the end of both great wars. You command the finest vessel ever made by human and Separatist hands, you have destroyed two of the sacred rings and spat in prophets and the Gods faces. I have never met a better strategist, better leader or friend, Thealon, if any of us aboard this ship can get us out of this it would be you. And if not, well you of all people can help us survive," with that he patted the shoulder his hand was rested upon and nodded, he walked away toward the armory, leaving Thealon standing with his thoughts.

He sighed and regained his posture but rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb, Gods, all this stress was getting to him. On the bright side he hadn't had a good fight in a while, it felt good to have a weapon in his hands again, maybe he'd take Elizabeth up on that drink she offered a while ago or visit the firing range or something. He let out a deep exhale and walked up toward the bridge.

* * *

><p>Rebecca watched as Thealon rounded a corner out of her sight, she scribbled more down on her notepad, she looked up to check no one was around and stood up, straightening her dress and clearing her throat as she tried to regain her professional look. She wasn't too big of fan of the whole secret-undercover-paparazzi way of getting information but on this ship that and rumors were the only thing that seemed to be working when it came to getting info. And now she needed to learn why they had gone planet-side and what was on that datapad that lackey Drex had been given.<p>

She thought about ways of getting it, she could probably get it practically by asking for it and smiled at the plan, then mentally slapped herself, while she did have a dislike for most, if not all, Sangheili, she had to remember that Drex was one of Thealon's inside guys, the elite wasn't a fool nor could he be bargained with. She thought about trying to hack the system to find it, no, she had tried it before and something had blocked her nigh instantly.

She thought about going to the bridge, while it wasn't necessarily the smartest option, as long as she didn't have Stewart in tow she should be alright. Yeah, that's what she'll do, walk in and observe, and that's what she did, well, at least the walking in part.

That golden ranger who Thealon seemed to have respect for but whose identity remained a mystery to her, was right in front of her when she walked in and he turned and looked at her, he tapped Thealon's arm, he got up and looked at her, shit, she should have planned this far.

"Rebecca, what is it this time?" he asked with a disappointed sigh.

She thought quickly, best to be honest, this guy just knew when she was lying, "I came up to know why you guys went planet-side and why the crew was ordered to battle stations," she said. "I don't have a cameraman, it's just me and my memory and I just wanna ask a couple questions," she added, "I know you and I haven't really, clicked," she said and he raised an eyebrow, "but I just wanna know something, anything." He looked at her with a thoughtful look and nodded her over. She sighed, wow she…she had actually managed to get him to agree to an…she was hesitant to call it an interview but that's something of what it was so that's what she'll call it.

"Alright, Rebecca, I agreed to answer your questions, what are they?" he asked leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as the ranger walked out and she took a seat on a chair she pulled up.

She crossed her legs, "What happened planet-side, and my previous question, why can't I contact my supervisors?" hopefully she'll be able to finally get some answers.

He looked at her and then everyone around the bridge, "If you're willing to wait, it won't be too long before everyone knows that," he said turning back to her. Well there goes that, but he did say later so later she'd most likely get it, better then than never.

She frowned a little but shrugged, "Well…how about that ranger you talk to so much, and what's up with the gold armor, is he a field master?" she asked.

"If you want to find out ask him, if he doesn't want to tell you, then I guess you're out of luck." Well this wasn't getting her anywhere, looks like despite being able to reason to get him to talk she probably wasn't gonna get anything out of him until later.

"How about what happened with the power and all that, we were under attack sure, but what was attacking us?" Rebecca was doubting she was gonna get anything more out of him so the answer to this question would probably let her know if later was the only way to get info or not.

He looked at Drex as the Sangheili worked at trying to decipher the alien language from the datapad and get any useful information recorded. "Of what I know, we were attacked by a hostile race known as what a…friendly race referred to as the Geth. Of what I learned they call themselves quarians, of what I've seen most of them wear environmental suits, we were contacted by them shortly after and everything else will come up later. I apologize for not being more forthcoming, but you'll get answers soon enough I promise," with that he nodded and turned away as Rebecca took in some of the information. She let the frown stick on her face but got up and walked out, well that didn't go as well as she had thought but maybe the two of them were getting on a better note, maybe, she'd have to see.

* * *

><p>Thealon breathed a sigh of relief, he never felt comfortable being asked questions, but she had helped remind him he'd have to talk to the rest of the crew sooner or later and now was the perfect time to think up something. As he sat and thought Ruby appeared beside him, "Ship Master," she greeted, "Drex has forwarded me the information on the datapad."<p>

He nodded and turned his chair, a holoscreen coming up in front of him, "Show me," several lists of information began scrolling before coming to a stop. "So what am I looking at here," he said as he enlarged an article of sorts with a picture of a space station with five arms spread out.

"The quarians, the race we have met, are just one of several races known in this universe. This is what every one of those races call the Citadel, I'd like to think it's similar to the space station High Charity from the Great War, though not nearly as large."

He thought about that, so it was where all their leaders came together? "Explain," he said as he skimmed the article beneath, Ruby enlarged certain parts that were important or what she was going over at the moment.

"There are four races that are part of the Council, representatives for each of the leading races in the galaxy. The asari," a picture of several blue skinned females in dresses appeared, they had what appeared to be tentacles on their head, but there didn't appear to be any males. "A monosexual race of females and leaders in the technological aspect of the other council races. The turians," the picture cycled to several creatures that Thealon felt looked similar to a Sangheili, mandibles, it appeared largely military, but they were but paler in color and if not they were more brown skinned then black. "They have the strongest military force in the Citadel fleet and make up a majority of it. The Salarians," again the pictures cycled to a very skinny race with large eyes and small horns atop their heads, "an amphibious race that have the best in stealth technology and training. And finally…" the picture cycled again.

"Humans," Thealon finished as he looked at the picture of several humans doing various tasks, training, talking over plans for something, one was on a call.

"Yes…the most recent addition with the recent attack on the Citadel by a geth attack force lead by a rogue Spectre known as Saren Arterius in his dreadnought known as Sovereign." A picture of a large dark ship appeared as it fired lasers at an attacking fleet, "A force lead by one Commander John Shepard infiltrated the taken over Citadel and killed Saren Arterius, saving the Council and putting humans on the Council, naming a David Anderson as Councilor," she finished.

Thealon looked over some of the information, "So makes the path of the humans in this…place different than those of ours?" he asked.

"If by place you mean galaxy, well the year here is 2184 and in 2148 humans discovered ruins of an ancient race known as Protheans, they reverse engineered the technology to allow them to use what is known as the mass effect." A picture of what looked like a giant tuning fork with a glowing blue center and spinning rings popped up, "These are mass relays, through the use of mass effect technology humans were able to use the mass relays. In the year 2157 the humans fell into what was known as the First Contact War with the turians, thankfully enough for them it ended that same year before full-scale war could erupt."

Thealon thought about several things while he took in all this information, "So what of the quarians, or these other races you are referring to?" he asked as he swept his hand across the holoscreen and saw a picture of what appeared to be quarians.

"Non-Council races include the quarians, the volus," a picture of small round being in suits were conversing in front of what appeared to be a store, "the elcor and hanar," a large quadruped creature was standing in front of what appeared to be a large pink jellyfish, they were amply labeled below them to signify which race was which. "The batarians, krogan, and vorcha," the three appeared in armor as they appeared to be looting something, one had four eyes and pale brown skin, the other was large with a shotgun in hand a crest atop his forehead, the last were the one carrying the boxes and they were thin goblin-looking things, all were labeled for his knowledge. "And finally the drell, they live among the hanar and are also an amphibious race," another pictured cycled through to give him an idea what they looked like.

"Races not found on the Citadel are the quarians, batarians, vorcha, and geth, AI are also prohibited to be made, sold, or otherwise exist in many places," she smiled, "Well that should be fun."

Thealon furrowed his brow as he read biographies of each race, krogan were allowed on the citadel but weren't usually more than bodyguards or thugs, suffered a birth-rate-altering chemical known as the Genophage to keep them in check after a rebellion. Batarians lost their spot due to continuous use of slave labor, didn't really say why vorcha were but he could take guess reading about them. But why were the quarians apparently exiled, not allowed in Citadel space, wondering nomads despite having the largest fleet in the galaxy, they created the geth, that might have something to do with it.

"Why aren't the quarians on the Council, or allowed in Citadel space?"

"It would appear that they once had all those things but when they dabbled with AI technology and created the geth and were forced off their homeworld they were exiled from the Citadel." He raised an eyebrow, and looked at Ruby before looking back at a picture of the quarians and then the geth, they lost their homeworld…200 years ago and on the same day they were forced off the Citadel for the construction of AI's. Without a home for 200 years and with weak immune systems they aren't able to colonize planets, forced to wander the stars…now his kind were suffering the same fate, in far, far less numbers, but he can't see them doing this for 200 years, the average Sangheili lifespan was about 300-350 years, he was in his late hundreds now.

He shook off the thought, now was not the time to think selfishly or that far ahead for that matter, what mattered now was what was happening now, what is to happen soon. Thealon took a deep breath, "We're going to need fuel for this trip to the Citadel, something we're currently low on, what's the closest space station or fueling platform?"

Ruby waved her hand and a star map of the galaxy came up, "Scanning…there," a small ping appeared and she zoomed in to a space station that closer resembled High Charity, though still didn't match the size by a long shot. "Omega, it's a well known space station, and not necessarily in the good way," she said with a raised eyebrow.

Thealon nodded, "Alright then take us there when the drive has cooled, make sure stealth systems are engaged when we come out of Slipspace, we don't want anything happening to us when we're getting fuel. Prep a phantom and tell Kamau to get some of his troops ready for when I say, best to be prepared just in case," Ruby's form nodded and then vanished from beside him. Thealon turned and looked at the bridge as his crew furiously typed in commands and checked the systems, sooner or later he'd have to tell them all about their situation. His gaze fell upon Drex, who was looking back at him, he nodded and Thealon did in return, sooner was better, so now it would be. He got up and pressed the intercom button.

"Everyone, this is Ship Master Thealon speaking, I want everyone gathered in the cargo bay in ten minutes, I have an announcement I think all of you should hear," he moved his hand away from the console and nodded to his bridge crew and walked out.

* * *

><p>Tali sat twiddling with her omni-tool as it downloaded the footage from the recent battle against the Blue Suns attack force, she was told by one of her friends on the bridge she had to see it and here she sat bored out of her skull while her bosh'tet of an omni-tool had difficulties getting the footage.<p>

"Well it'll be worth it to see what kind of firepower their ships have I guess," she thought aloud to herself. She sat in her personal cabin, something not many were privileged to, but being the daughter to an Admiral had its advantages, here she could talk to herself, study whatever small tech they had found all in private. The more she watched the small bar slowly fill up the more anxious she became about seeing what she was about to see, fantasizing what kind of technology they had. Maybe giant lasers like Sovereign, or a death ray of some sort, with a ship of that size anything was possible.

"Finally!" she said throwing her hand in the air as the bar filled all the way, she tapped the play button and watched, while there were several cameras on the hull her friend had pieced together, 'the best angles' as he had told her. The video began with their ship moving toward the closest moon for cover as the Blue Suns ship closed in, it was obvious they weren't going to get out of view before the ship came within firing range.

Tali watched as the angle changed, this time from a camera on the side of the ship looking back now on the left of the ship. Suddenly the Blue Suns Ship became distorted and Tali thought it was her omni-tool acting up again until she saw purple hull armor crackle and fade into existence and suddenly the ship she knew was already massive showed just how huge it was, easily outsizing even the Blue Suns ship. If she were to guess the thing was almost as big as Sovereign, she got the chills as she thought back to the walk on the outside of the Citadel tower with Sovereign looming ahead of them.

She shook her head and watched, the Blue Suns ship fired what appeared to be everything it had as the space between the two ships was filled with fire from the attack ship. A blue light barrier or shield stopped all the shots dead and barely flickered with each hit, certainly wasn't a kinetic barrier with the way it looked, what kind of shield was that? While she debated the answer to this question the angle changed again to the top of the science vessel as it pulled up over the leviathan and she could see it on the bottom of the screen as well as the Blue Suns' ship sat in the middle of the screen.

Tali lurched a little as the ship jumped to FTL, she was annoyed by the small distraction but quickly returned to the video, three spots on Thealon's ship glowed as the barrage from the enemy vessel stopped, three massive blots of energy slowly crept their way toward the smaller craft. The ship easily pulled out of the trajectory of the three shots, until they adjusted their course and continued to head for the ship. Tali stared in amazement, if the ship weapons operated like the ground based ones then it used plasma…that meant…guided plasma?

"No way," she muttered to herself in shock as the craft hid behind one of the moons, a sound plan, ones shot hit the moon and it glowed red hot as molten particles flew into space. Mind you this was not a large moon, enough heat and explosives and that thing would just explode from gas build up. The second shot hit the moon and continued to eat through it until, sure enough, it ruptured and left the ship exposed for the last shot. If that was a normal kinetic shot, an accelerator cannon per-say, they shields would've stopped it, even for a shot of that size, but it was plasma, kinetic barriers don't stop plasma too well.

And so it was that that shot tore into the ship, boiling its hull and melting full sections of the ship into nothing. Tali leaned in closer as it looked like the bottom ball part of the front of Thealon's ship glowed brightly before a huge beam cut through space and split the ship in half starting with the bridge, a moment later, when the beam hit the engines, it exploded and vaporized the whole ship. Tali sat gaping as the large ship pulled away from the quarian vessel, even then it still didn't fit the whole camera screen, well, guess they do have a death ray, Keelah only knows what else it might be for, or what else it could be used for…

She shook off the thought and closed her omni-tool as she heard a knock on her door, she got up and walked over to it, putting her hand on the holographic switch and opening the door. "Yes Lan?" she asked as the young quarian stood before her. He motioned her outside her room, she raised an eyebrow but did as she was instructed, he nodded and began to walk, she followed.

"Your, uh, father wants us, you, a group of marines, and I to go to Freedom's Progress…" before he could finish Tali stopped.

"Why does he want us going to a human colony?" she asked a bit rudely, Lan nodded her to continue with him, frowned but followed.

"As I was saying, we lost contact with the colony and a quarian on Pilgrimage, Veetor'Nara, was there, since we're the closest ship they want us to go check it out and if it's bad, get him out."

Tali thought about it, well usually they didn't really do things like this, but everyone in the quarian race looked out for one another so it was understandable, "Who's coming with us?" she asked.

Lan looked back at her, "Well, you're leading the group, I'm piloting the ship that gets us there, and Prazza and his squad are coming with us," he said.

Tali growled under her breath, "Prazza…" of all the people she could have gone with, he was idiot at best and the two of them hadn't had a habit of getting along.

"Hm? You say something?" Lan asked, Tali looked up at him.

"No, why?"

He shrugged, "Just thought I heard you say something is all," he turned again and they walked into the hangar as the ship lurched again as it dropped out of FTL.

"Well come on, let's go in there and rescue a poor helpless kid before he hurts himself trying to fix something," Tali heard a familiar voice say as she walked around the shuttle with Lan. Prazza and his squad sat checking weapons and what not, the one who weren't standing got up as they saw Tali and Lan round the corner. "There you are, what took you so long, let me guess, daddy wanted a chat?" Prazza mocked.

She stared him down, "No, conversing with and alien race who saved both are asses and studying their weapons, might help you if you piss one of them off you bosh'tet," she said and looked past the quarian. "Everyone get into the ship, we'll be off in a couple minutes," she said and looked back at Prazza, who turned back to her as he saw his troops file into the ship, "You need your audio checked too?" she asked, he snorted and turned to get into the ship. "That's what I thought," she turned to see Lan shrug and walk past her and step into the ship. Well she wouldn't have to put up with him for long, just a get in and get out kinda mission, shouldn't be too hard.

* * *

><p>Thealon watched as everyone gathered in whatever open space they could find in the hangar, cargo bay, whatever you preferred to call it, and waited for Thealon to say what he needed to say. He walked up to a small stack of boxes and swung himself up and cleared his throat, everyone quieted down and watched him. He looked out among the crowd over every face he knew, Sangheili and human alike, his bridge crew staying up there but listening in most likely.<p>

"I bet you're wondering why I called all of you here," he began, "but before that I'll let you know now, it will be hard for some of you to bare what I am about to tell you. I won't sugar coat it, many of you may…wish to see Dr. Wundre after this and I'd greatly appreciate it if you do that before any…rash actions are taken." Many people among the crowd looked between themselves and murmured, he lowered his head a bit and raised his hand, it slowly quieted down, he closed his hand into a fist and then lowered it.

Thealon looked up at the crowd again, "We are…no longer in our own reality, there is no Sangheilios, there is no UNSC, there is nothing here that we know save earth and the humans." Where he expected looks among the crowd, at him and between themselves, he had not anticipated the silence, such a long and deep silence. He took a deep breath, "We made contact with an alien race known as the quarians, several of you and I went groundside and met them, we were given new star maps and new information, there are humans here, but none that you will know. I do not know when, if, or how we will return home, but expect the worst," everyone was just silent, heads drooped, there were looks between friends and at him.

"But listen," he said loudly, "I will make sure I do everything in my power to try and help us return home, but I need each and every one of you to cooperate with me. I need every man and woman aboard this ship, I will not except it if any of you are to take your own life, I will understand, but I will be more disappointed in you than anything else. You have come to know me as I have to you, I will not lie, it will be hard, some of us may even die if worst comes to worst, but I promise…I promise, if we return home, I will do everything in my power to make sure none of you are forgotten. We will write history if not in our own books then in theirs, we will make sure we are not forgotten, no matter what. Everyone…take care of yourselves, I hope to see all of you alive and well to the end of this journey, if anyone has any questions, please come talk to me." With that he hopped down from the boxes and walked through the crowd, they split to allow him passage, some shaking his hand and other patting him on the back.

He did not tell them of the saboteur though, how could he when he could hardly trust any of them now save a select few, but he guessed he made the best out of a bad situation, one way or another something had to be done, but for now they focus on survival. Whether the bastard who stranded them here was still aboard or not it was hard to say, but he doubted that person was too interested in ending their life to put them all down, but he'd have to see.

"Ruby," he called out when he was sure he was alone, "what's the status on the drive?"

"It finished cooling in the middle of your speech, do you want to make the jump to Omega?" she asked him, her crimson form appearing beside him using one of the many holopanels across the ship.

He nodded, "Also step up any security measures, it's impossible to say what this saboteur will do next, we don't want them taking out the engine or something," he said and Ruby nodded.

"I'll keep an even keener eye on the cameras if that was what you meant," she said with a smirk and bowed before vanishing. Thealon took a relaxing breath, good, he had gotten several things off his chest and now all he had to do was think of what to do next, Gods only know what could happen next.

"Craziest thing since Requiem," he muttered to himself as he made his way to the bridge.

* * *

><p>Tali, Prazza, and his squad got out of the shuttle and looked around the empty colony. There was nothing, no signs of battle, no people, nothing, it's like everyone just got up and vanished into thin air. She frowned and walked up to a clerks desk in front of the landing pad they landed at, no bodies or anything, it looked like the terminal still worked though.<p>

"Hello out there! Anyone home?" Prazza yelled, nothing replied other than his echo.

Tali snapped to him, "Idiot, stay quiet, if there's anything here you might alert them we're here!" she hissed at him. She pulled up her omni-tool and tried hacking the console, she saw a camera positioned so it looked right at her as she looked into the booth.

"Last I checked that was something of the point," Prazza mumbled to himself as he went to talk with his squad. Tali ignored him and finished hacking the console, she pulled up the video feed, she saw a human sitting in his chair with his feet kicked up on the console and a hat over his head. She smiled a bit to herself as the figure reminded her of Joker, her face straightened though as she remembered what was important now though, she looked at the clock, no more than a day or two ago.

She frowned and watched as the camera suddenly cut out, she fast forwarded the clip until the static cleared, it wasn't until several hours later it cleared up and no one was there, just gone. Tali continued to fast forward the clip till she saw herself walk up to the booth and stopped it there, she looked around the empty colony, what could have happened here off on the edge of council space, slavers maybe, but they would have at least showed up on the camera if they didn't bust it.

Tali walked over to the group of marines, "So, find anything?" one of them asked her.

"Nothing, everyone's here one minute, several hours later, they're just gone, let's just hope Veetor is still here," she said desperately.

"Doubtful if everyone else is gone," Prazza said but Tali shot him a look, "but it never hurts to be optimistic I guess," he said the group moved on, Lan staying in the ship while the others explored the colony. After several minutes of searching they found a mech operational, and it began shooting at them, it didn't last long of course, but there had to be a reason it was still operational.

"Mechs don't usually shoot right away, they usually give the robber or whoever it may be, a chance to surrender before opening fire, my guess is that it was hacked," one of the marines said as Tali bent over the destroyed piece of metal that several seconds ago was a mech.

"Well I'm not going to get anything off this anymore, let's see if there's a terminal or something around here I can use," she looked around at all the houses. "There," she said pointing to a larger house, "let's try there," she said and the group moved up. She knocked on the door twice before placing an ear to it, not hearing anything she opened the door, the lights kicked on, but no one was around.

"Look for anything, but be careful for any mechs, we don't want someone rupturing a suit over one security mech," she said and everyone split into pairs as they combed the house.

"Got something!" she heard someone yell, the group met up at a small coffee table and Prazza set a laptop down on it, "Pulled this off of a security terminal, might be able to use it," he suggested and Tali nodded.

"Well let's see," she said and opened the computer, it took a minute to hack into it but before she knew it she had access to the whole computer, "Alright let's see what we can find," she muttered and began typing away.

After several minutes the marines decided to rest a bit and some of them sat down or rested their guns on their shoulders. Suddenly the doors on the other side of the room opened and three figures walked in, all of them but the one in the middle sporting Cerberus colors. The figures and the marines all raised their weapons at the same time, the middle figure of the new group had his up the fastest.

"Stop right there!" Prazza commanded and Tali stood and ran over, shoving his gun down and holding a hand up to the other group.

"Prazza you said you'd let me handle this," she looked over to the group and stopped dead still, "Wait…Shepard?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hey y'all how's it going? Good I hope, here it's been the closest thing to a drought, no rain except little sprinkles that evaporate into thin…humid air after about five minutes, it's like walking on razor blades in the grass man. Anyway sorry for the lengthy update, a rift opened in the space time continuum of my computer screen, I think I told you all this, well finally got it fixed and replaced, and now it is time for my work to bear fruit. Between having to read a very long book and write a very long essay about the very long book and not having any time to myself this summer, I take breaks where I get them usually on the Xbox, just how it happens. Anywho, hope you enjoyed and thank all three…of you who have sent in the OC charts, may I add they were very good and well thought out characters and I look forward to using them. In the mean time enjoy and please R&amp;R criticism and praise is appreciated, anything else can go screw itself…just joking anything you wanna point out go ahead and do it, review about anything your heart desires so long as it pertains to this story, whether it be the sheer length of this run-on sentence or about me butchering the English language somewhere in my story excluding this massive run-on sentence. Good day to you all and thank you for reading this far if you have done so.<strong>

** Also what do you all think of the new pic I added for the cover, made it myself :3**


	9. Chapter 8

Persecution Complex Ch. 8

**AN: Hello all, thank you for the reviews and the favs and everything, really inspires me to put these up faster. That and the fact the only way anyone will see it in more than a day after upload is for me to pull as many of these out of my bum as fast as possible, don't worry I try to go with quality work too, though if you're looking for actual quality work go check out Clash of Civilizations or something, far better than anything I can accomplish. Anywho, as you may know SPOILER! I own nothing, I know shocker right, and also may I add, Jetsmillion, I like your style of thinking, if ever you feel confident enough in yourself to write one if you hadn't already I'm sure you can come up with a good story. Anyway, enjoy this next chapter and thank you to any and all who have gotten this far into this wonderful shit storm that is my story. Good day to you SIR! (and/or madam)**

* * *

><p>Tali walked up to the door Shepard and the other two Cerberus operatives walked through, and heard someone talking inside, a female voice. "We need to get this data to the Illusive man, grab the quarian and call the shuttle to come pick us up," Tali's eyes widened and she opened the door and walked in.<p>

"What? Veetor is injured! He needs treatment, not an interrogation!" she said pointing at the Cerberus operative.

"We won't hurt him. We just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned unharmed," the other one besides Shepard said.

"Your people tried to betray us once already, if we give him to you we'll never get the information we need," the woman said.

"Prazza was an idiot, and he and his men paid for it. You're welcome to take Veetor's omni-tool data, but please, just let me take him with me." She looked at Shepard with a pleading look in her eyes, she hoped Cerberus hadn't done something to him to change him.

"Why don't you come with us Tali, I'm sure we could use your help," he suggested.

"I'm sorry Shepard, I've got more important things I can't just put on hold, not even for you. I'm still getting over the fact you're alive!" she said and he nodded with understanding and turned to the woman.

"He's traumatized and needs medical care. Tali will give us the omni-tool data and take him to the flotilla," Tali inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Understood Commander," the woman replied giving Tali a look.

"Thank you Shepard. I'm glad you're still the one giving orders," Shepard smiled and Tali cleared her throat. "Well…uh, good luck out there, if I find anything that can help you I'll let you know," she said and Shepard nodded. Tali held up a hand, "Come on Veetor, let's go," she said and wrapped an arm around Veetor's shoulder and walked him out as the man with Shepard called their shuttle.

"Take care of yourself Tali," Shepard called to her and she nodded before walking out the door.

She walked Veetor down the stairs, "Lan, I'm going to need you to come pick us up…I'm going to need your help with the bodies."

"Keelah, I'm coming now," he replied and Tali walked Veetor over to the bunk house they had some of the wounded. When she walked in she looked at all the dead and wounded they had pulled in, one in particular standing out to her. She felt her blood boil as she set Veetor down and stomped over to him, "Prazza you stupid idiot of bosh'tet! What the Hell were you thinking!" she yelled at the half conscience quarian.

"Couldn't let them take him, would've hurt him," he replied weakly.

She felt herself calm down a bit, in a way he was right, they would have taken him, she learned that first hand, but he still shouldn't have just ran out there! "Listen, Prazza, I understand we haven't always seen eye to eye," she crouched down so she was level with him as she heard a craft land outside, followed by another. "But next time let me handle it, maybe you won't get everyone killed next time if they don't exile you," she said wrapping an arm under his and lifting him up and taking him to the shuttle as Shepard's took off.

Lan ran over, he saw blood on the ground and Tali carrying Prazza with Veetor and another quarian trailing behind her carrying wounded, "Keelah, what happened?" he asked taking Prazza.

"This idiot here wanted to get to Veetor before Shepard and his squad and ended up getting nearly everyone killed," her tone rising as she scolded the injured quarian. "There are more in the back, Yael and I will get the dead and wounded, you make sure Veetor is okay," Lan nodded and Veetor followed him to the shuttle.

"Tali," she heard her name and turned Yael walked over to the doorway, shaking his head, "we lost another one," he said and Tali hung her head. So this is what it feels like to loose someone under your command, Keelah why did she have to be leading this squad.

"Come on," she said lifting her head and walking over to the small shack, "let's get them out of here," she said and the quarian nodded and picked up one of the dead and threw them over his shoulder. Tali looked at him pass and then at the bodies of her comrades, she took a deep breath and bent down to grab a body.

* * *

><p>Near Omega a black rift opened in space, a large purple ship came flying out of it and slowed, by the time the rift closed the vessel had vanished.<p>

Thealon sat in his chair as the ship flew past one of the tuning fork structures known as the mass relay, this one was different though, it had a red light in the center and seemed to be made of a darker metal. He brushed off the thought and pulled up a holoscreen of footage from outside the hull looking toward their intended path, he expanded and he could see their objective much more clearly as he saw the space station among a small asteroid field. The _Nero_ was far too large to even get close without getting noticed or bringing too much attention to themselves, as such, he had Kamau lead a group of his elites and bring the Spartans with him, maybe bring a scientist or two for examination and study of the area.

Thinking of that he queued up his comm., "Doctor Frey are you there?" it took a minute but he got a response.

"Uh, yeah, whadda you need Thealon?" she asked.

"I was wondering if one of your assistants, ah what was her name, Mia! I was wondering if Mia would be willing to go aboard the space station to examine anything useful. She'll be guarded by the best, I can promise that much," there was a pause.

"Um…uh, yeah, sure let me ask her," there was mumbling and a small shout of excitement before Elizabeth got back on the comm., "Yeah I think she wants to go."

Thealon smiled a little, "Tell her to meet the ranger in the hangar and to tell him Thealon said she was to come along."

"I'll get right on it," she said and the comm. cut out, Thealon leaned back in his chair and looked again at the approaching station. It'll be good to see if they even had the right kind of fuel, he thought a bit, maybe he could guide Mia through a set of tasks, asking questions and getting info. He had read that most things ran on a substance known as element zero, but hopefully he'd be able to get something they can use or find a way to convert it into something they'd use.

He looked at his comm. and queued it up again, this time in the barracks, "Sergeant Goddrick are you there?" he spoke into the comm.

"Loud and clear Field Marshall, what do you need," Thealon smirked a bit, while many of his crew and outsiders called him Ship Master, his ground forces and friends who didn't call him by name usually called him Field Marshall. It was his true rank he felt, and he did not deserve the title of Fleet or Ship Master, but if anyone was to lead the crew it was him and that there was no one anyone else wanted more. While those were the words of his crew and not him he took pride in them.

"Sergeant, I may need you and some of your men to escort one of our scientist on a mission to gather intel. It'll only be at most three I'd say, I'll be feeding her questions and your duty is just to make sure she gets back safe. Also, I'd advise maybe staying out of uniform if possible but grab personal, or gauntleted shields in case something happens."

"Understood sir, but may I ask why we don't at least send a Spartan with us, I don't doubt our abilities but we have no idea what to expect," the man replied. Thealon liked his caution, a good leader always looked out for his men.

"I'll see if I can get one of them to go with you but in that case it should only be one or two of you then, you decide who goes. Whoever is going is to speak with either the Spartans or the golden ranger in the hangar. Better do it quick too, we are approaching the space station shortly," with that he closed the line and sat back. He didn't know what to think about getting the fuel, maybe they could scrounge up something, convert this element zero into something useful, he didn't know. It was all a matter of time and effort, and if they couldn't find fuel, then their time would soon run short.

* * *

><p>Mia Piovasan walked into the hangar, meeting a pair of ODST's along the way who said they were going with her and a Spartan to try and get some answers aboard the space station. They handed her a mic and she put it in her ear before grabbing her datapad as it fell out of its spot under her arm. Scientist as she may have been, she didn't want to be dropping into possibly hostile territory without some defense, one learned to come prepared for anything when you worked with ONI for several years.<p>

She did a quick check of her person, knife, check, pistol check, datapad, check, functioning shields, check. Her armor, closely resembling that of an ODST's, was much smaller and allowed for even more mobility while not sacrificing the protection. The helmet was a it smaller with a slightly smaller visor, but in most ways it was similar to just a normal set of armor. She walked over to where the other two ODST's had gone and spotted the ranger she figured was the one she was supposed to talk to.

The SpecOps he was talking to nodded to her and the ranger turned and looked down at her. "I was told to see you, Thealon said I was to come along to try to get information," she said and the ranger nodded.

"The Phantom is over there," he said and pointed to the floating craft as troops were pulled into it through the gravity beam. She nodded and walked over to where the other two ODST's were, they looked like they were talking to one of the Spartan's.

As she approached she heard them, it looked like the Spartan was speaking, "Thealon contacted us, he said one of us was to guard a scientist, we decided I'd do it." She had blue armor on and a rifle in hand, the marines gestured to Mia as she approached.

"Yep, that's her there. Miss Piovasan, this is Ellenor, Ellenor, Miss Piovasan," one of them said and the Spartan nodded.

"Mia will do, easier on the tongue I'd guess," she said with a grin.

"Psh, you tell me, if I didn't butcher the name the first time God only knows how I remembered it to begin with," the marine said and nudged his buddy and they both walked over to the Phantom.

Mia watched them but turned her attention to the Spartan, who glanced at her and walked over to the phantom with the other troopers. They weren't known to be big talkers, she sighed, hopefully this could go off without a hitch, but who knew, anything was possible. She walked over to the phantom and stepped under the ray of light, a moment later she was lifted off the ground into the awaiting ship.

While she had been in a pelican and long/shortsword many times, a phantom was definitely a first, but if they wanted to get and get out without being noticed it was the only way. The ship was fairly packed, if she were to guess there were about 15 elites with them, the rest were the three Spartans and her and the two ODST's, where was the gold ranger though?

No sooner had she thought the question had he come up the beam with his hands behind his back, the lift closing below him, he landed softly and walked up to the front of the ship. He hammered the cockpit door with his fist and grabbed a handhold as the ship lurched and took off. It was probably going to be a while before they got there since Thealon wanted the ship a reasonable distance so as to not be detected.

They sat in silence for a while, the elites muttering jokes between themselves from time to time or swapping a battle story or something. The two ODST's who were her guards this mission, had a silent conversation and she just sat quietly, so quietly…God it was eating away at her this silence. She walked over to where the ODST's were, nudging her way past an elite and one of the Spartans.

"Well you know how it is, any girl in the UNSC usually has a rod so far up their ass they usually just live for the corps and nothing else," one was saying before the other cleared his throat and gestured to Mia with a nod of his head and began whistling a tune to himself.

"Eh? Doctor…well…this is awkward," the one who had been talking said rubbing the back of his neck.

"So what, you got nothing to look forward to when we get back home is what you're saying, no good women in the wonderful hellhole that is the UNSC?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and a grin.

"Nah…well I guess, family died in the second uprising of the Covenant and no girl is good enough for my rugged good looks sooo…" he shrugged.

"How bought you doctor, you got the hots for anyone around the ship or back home or whatever," the other asked her.

"Nah, single and staying that way," she said half-heartedly.

They looked at each other and laughed, "No offense ma'am, but you certainly don't sound like it."

She opened her mouth to say something when the ranger spoke up, "We're approaching the LZ, everyone get ready." With that the elites pulled various weapons from their backs as well as the Spartans and the two ODST's, Mia just looked among everyone and her hand touched the pistol on her thigh. Her and her two escorts would be taking the grav lift down while everyone else just kinda…jumped. But they had to wait for the others to clear the landing zone, or at least make sure it was clear.

After everyone activated their camo the doors opened and everyone jumped out of the ship except for the golden ranger, Mia, and the two marines. After a minute the ranger held a hand to his helmet and nodded, first to himself and then the trio. The gravity lift opened up and the three of the stepped into it and were lowered to the ground. Mia looked up and saw nothing but the inside of the ship as it had activated its own camo.

She looked over and saw the ranger jump out, hitting the ground the same time they did, while it wasn't a big drop it was just better for the three of them, Mia and the ODST's, to just take the lift. He looked at them and then the Spartan as she decloaked and walked over to them, the ranger nodded and began shouting orders before he himself vanished.

"You ready?" the Spartan asked Mia, who took a deep breath and nodded.

"Let's hope we can find out way back," she said and activated her comm. to signal Thealon.

"Don't worry, I got that covered," the Spartan said before nodding to the ODST's.

"Mia, do you read?" she heard over the comm.

"I got you Thealon, we'll be heading toward…I don't know really, if there's a market here but we'll head there first if we can find one," she said and he just signaled the okay.

She nodded, "Alright, let's get this wonderful show on the road," one of the ODST's said and the Spartan nodded, and well, they were off.

A while later they found themselves in some sort of market, there was a mad alien shouting how the end was nigh and that humans were to blame. While Mia would have avoided this kind of place, the entire station seemed to be this way, dirty, grimy, full of people who would stab you for one credit and even down the road from where said crazy preacher was quarantined because of a plague.

"Thealon, we're at a market, but I just realized a problem…we don't have any money," she said.

There was a minute before she got a response, "Listen, Ruby has hacked a nearby terminal. It'll give you ten thousand credits that will work as a currency here if that's not enough then we'll have to resort to a less honorable way of getting the fuel," was her response. She looked around and saw the terminal that was marked on her HUD and walked over.

"Mia Piovasan, welcome," it said and small chip popped out of the machine, she pulled it out and examined it, must be like a credit card or something. She looked at her guards, who were eyeing everything that looked at them the wrong way, or who just looked at them at all really. She looked back at the terminal to find that it flat out died, must have been Ruby clearing the system.

She walked through the place a but till she saw a man in what appeared to be an environmental suit welding something. Ellenor nudged her in that direction so she walked over to him, after of course they made sure the goblin things kept their distance.

She cleared her throat, "'Scuse me?" she said and the man looked up, no, he had three fingers, he was an alien. "We're looking for fuel but our ship runs on a…different kind of fuel," she said and the alien, who only his eyes were really visible, raised and eyebrow, at least that was what it appeared through the opaque visor.

"What kind?" he asked, he sounded human, just with an accent, and also seemed reasonably nice.

She heard her comm., "It's in the datapad, hand it to him."

She took the datapad off her thigh and handed it to him, "This is the general make-up for it," she said.

He looked it over and seemed shocked, "This is…this is a very advanced kind of formula…I…uh, give me a minute," he said and Mia nodded to Ellenor. He came back up to the counter several minutes later, "Well, uh I'm just on my pilgrimage so I can't say this is necessarily the best way, but if you use this formula," he said leaning over the counter with a datapad. Mia leaned forward so she could see it, "If I were to guess, if use this you can probably find a way to convert the kind of fuel most ships use. It'll be complicated, but why your ship would be running on a fuel like this I have no idea to begin with. Not that I expect to find out how, but still," he finished and handed her the datapad.

"Alright how much do you want for it?" she asked.

"You're…you're willing to pay for it?" he asked surprised.

She looked around his setup, "Judging from your setup, you'd definitely use it," she said and he looked around with her.

"This…well yeah, I guess. But most of Omega is like this," he said. "But if you really want to pay for it then just fifty or a hundred credits will work," he said with a shrug.

Mia nodded, "Hundred it is," she said and handed him the chip, he took off a hundred and he nodded and handed it back to her.

"Listen, I can't get you the standard fuel, that's something you'd have to get at a fueling depot or something, but if ever you find yourselves back here I'll gladly give you a discount," he said. Mia nodded and smiled and thanked him before waving her crew along with her and walking back the way they came.

"Well that went better than I expected, nice call Ellenor," she said and uploaded the formula to the _Nero_. "Alright let's see if we can find our way back after checking with some of these guys to see if they got any fuel or information or something," she said and the trio with her nodded.

* * *

><p>Kamau paced back and forth as some of his troops scrounged the near area for anything useful, they had pulled some good salvage from a couple things that he was sure could be sold for something. One even found a chip that had about 200 of this places currency, a rare and necessary find. His comm. buzzed, "Kamau, what did you find?"<p>

"We found several barrels that have been labeled in a strange language, we scanned it and decoded the language, it appears to be fuel that ships in this place use." Kamau frowned, while he did not approve of such an unhonroable act, it was a matter of possibly life and death they got this fuel. This could very well be one of the only times they'd be able to get their hands on such a find.

"Alright, grab what you can, we'll need every available once," he said and felt someone nudge his arm. He turned and saw Vlad with his gun raised pointing at a stack of crates, they looked at each other and activated their camo, Kamau signaled to several others and they quickly surrounded the crates. He crept forward and peeked through a crack in them and saw an eye, the owner of said eye jumped back and hit the Sangheili waiting behind them.

It was a human by the looks of it, he wore blue and white armor and pulled a gun out as soon as he jumped away, swinging the gun around. Kamau growled, he recognized the armor, it was the same armor as the ones who attacked them when meeting with the quarians, Blue Suns. He decloaked as he walked around one of the crates, the man cried out and pointed his gun at him.

"What the fuck are you?" he shouted and fired his gun, causing Kamau's shields to flare. He quickened his pace and slapped the gun out of the hand of the trooper, his wrist blade coming out and stabbing him in the gut. He choked and coughed up a little bit of blood before Kamau drew his other and buried it in the mans throat, he died instantly. Grabbing the body, Kamau brought it to the edge of the platform and threw it off to the long drop below leading to who knew where.

He spun around, "Check the area, make sure he didn't call for help!" he ordered and the Sangheili warriors bowed and cloaked, spreading out around the area. "What's the status on that fuel?" he spoke into the comm.

"We are near, but we've found a patrol of guards, we'll have to sneak around," a whispered voice responded.

"Just make sure you are not seen, the less time we spend here the better," he said and cut the connection. He walked over to Sloan where he sat looking through a pile of crates at the platform down below, "See anything?" he asked the Spartan.

"Nothing worth mentioning, it appears we're in a more cut off part of the docking area. The guy we found, who thankfully wasn't heard by anyone, came up through that ladder over there and if I were to guess he was trying to get off a smoke or escape work or something," he said setting his rifle down and looking back at the ranger. "As for how our intel squad is going, Ellenor contacted Vlad and I, they got a formula that can convert the fuel they used here to fuel we can use. Right now though they're just seeing if they can find any fuel we can use or any info on where we can get some in the reasonably nearby area."

Kamau nodded, "Alright, let me know when they're on their way or when you see them, and make sure they're not being followed," he said. The Spartan nodded and looked through the scope of his battle rifle again.

* * *

><p>Commander Shepard stepped into the club Afterlife with Miranda and Jacob in tow. Music hammered at his ears, the smell or drinks and vomit was practically everywhere. He walked over to a set of stairs and a guard pointed up them and Shepard nodded. He walked up and saw an asari at the top sitting on a leather couch, as he walked up the stairs a bouncer caught him and pointed a gun to his, as well as nearly every one of them that wasn't pointing a gun at Miranda and Jacob. Shepard looked at the bouncers and then at the asari, she nodded her head a bit and the guards lowered their guns, but one came up and started to scan him.<p>

"Stand still," the batarian demanded, Shepard looked over his shoulder.

"What's the scan for?" he asked.

"Can't be too careful with a dead Spectre, anyone could be wearing your face," Aria said continuing to avoid looking at him. After a brief intro and a small conversation he started to ask for what Shepard started to ask what he came for.

"I'm looking for some people I might need for a mission," he said leaning back and resting his arm on the back of the couch.

"Of course you are, and who in Omega could possible be of interest to you?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"You know anything about Mordin Solus?"

"The Salarian doctor? Last I heard he was helping plague victims in the quarantine zone," she looked up a bit and smiled, "I always liked Mordin, he's as likely to heal you as he is to shoot you."

Shepard raised an eyebrow, "You know him?"

She turned a bit so she was facing him, "Yes, he used to be part of a Salarian Special Task Group. He's brilliant…and dangerous," she sat back a bit, "Just don't get him talking, he never shuts up." She looked back at him, "If you really need to see him, take a shuttle to the quarantine zone. If they'll let you in that is."

Shepard nodded, he was beginning to like Aria, she was a very…interesting character. "Alright, what can you tell me about Archangel?"

She gave him a look, "Other than the fact he managed to piss off every major gang organization on Omega? Nearly nothing. He showed up a couple months ago and started messing with the gangs, thinks he's fighting on the good side of Omega, there is no good side to Omega, and as such half of Omega wants him dead. Everything he does pisses someone off and now it's come bite him in the ass," she looked at Shepard with a smile. "Not that I doubt that will stop you of course, if you're really interested the Blue Suns have a recruitment post just down and around the corner, I'm sure they'll jet you through.

Shepard nodded and stood, "Thanks for the info, we should do this again some time," he joked.

"Maybe we will. Oh Commander, one more thing," he turned with a questioned look. "There seems to be some…interesting people making a visit to Omega, they're asking questions around the market, should be easy to spot. And if you have some time to spare they may have something to do with several missing people in the cargo area, upper platform by bay B32. Depending on how fast you get there may determine if you can meet them or not, they seem to be in a hurry." With that Shepard nodded and walked down the steps to where Miranda and Jacob stood.

"Well, should we go see who these newcomers are?" Shepard asked them, it was definitely a revelation of sorts, while it didn't sound too intriguing, whoever they had caught Aria's attention so who knew.

"If these people were truly that important the Illusive man would've told us about them. I think we should just focus on getting Archangel first, he doesn't sound like he has much time," Miranda suggested and looked at Jacob.

"I don't know, I think it would at least be a good idea to see who these people are, they have caused the disappearance of several people possibly then we should at least see what they're trying to hide," he said and Shepard nodded.

"We'll see if we can catch them in the market, maybe they'll take us to the place in the cargo bay," he said and Miranda shrugged.

"Whatever you say commander, you're the one leading this operation," Miranda said with a blank, but slightly irritated face.

They walked down to the market and saw a batarian standing on a crate yelling at the humans that they were all plights. There he saw them, a group of four of them, they were fairly hard to miss, especially with the seven foot, armor clad figure standing in the back.

Said armored figure instantly spotted him and stared him down, they wore a blue colored armor that he had never seen before, the body makeup made them definitely human, but he'd never seen that armor before. The figure nudged one of the three smaller armored people with them, never taking their eyes off Shepard, they looked at Shepard and spoke to the one obviously leading the group of them. The supposed leader was obviously female, she wore a smaller armor that the other two but it was very similar, again nothing like he'd seen before.

Shepard leaned over to Miranda as the woman looked at him, finished speaking to the elcor shop owner and quickly walked down a set of stairs and around a corner. "You ever seen armor like that, I've been dead for two years so I don't know if the Alliance changed their armor format or something," he said as he tailed the four people.

"I've never seen armor like that before," Miranda snapped back.

"I haven't seen a human who's that tall before," Jacob said with some shock.

They kept their distance but tried to keep them in sight, as they closed in on the cargo bay they were losing ground on the figures. "We gotta move a bit faster, come on," Shepard said and quickened his pace as the distant sound of weapon fire reached his ears.

* * *

><p>"Kamau I think we're being followed," the elite's comm. spoke into his ear. Kamau shot up and fired his plasma carbine into one of the blue suns attackers.<p>

"We have problems of our own, we've been discovered, get here as fast as you can!" he said and pulled up another channel. "Guila, where are you?" he shouted into the mic.

"Right here," he heard beside him and saw a door open up next to some crates and six Sangheili came running through with large barrels either under their arms or on their shoulders.

"Sloan! Do you see them yet?" Kamau shouted over the gun fire, he looked back and saw the troopers had made it into the Phantom and were now firing at the attacking force. They had to wipe them out, no one could know of their presence here, he pulled out a plasma grenade and threw it right into the group of them. It stuck to the barrel of one of the rocket troopers, the grenade and the trooper holding it screamed and it exploded, nearly vaporizing half of the troops.

"There, they just got through the door!" Sloan shouted and Kamau saw Vlad run up with a shotgun and shoot a man with a shot to the gut, his shield flared and died, he followed it with one to the head.

"Move up, kill them all, we can't let them know of our presence," he said and pulled out his focus rifle, cutting two of them in half before it overheated.

The Sangheili not aboard the ship already pulled out their plasma weapons and quickly finished off the last of the Blue Suns before Kamau saw Ellenor followed by the two ODST's and Mia run up and jump into the Phantom. Everyone made a mad dash for the Phantom, Kamau was the last aboard, he looked out of the closing doors when he saw a group of three armed people run through an open door. The ship was cloaked, there was no need to worry about being seen, he turned around as the doors closed but not before tossing a small flashbang out the open doors…just in case.

* * *

><p>Shepard climbed the ladder, which seemed to be the only way up to the platform from where he was. Blue Suns bodies littered the floor below and above and the shooting had stopped, if he hurried he could make it up there to see them at least take off or something. He climbed onto the ledge and snapped his gun up and swept the area, nothing but bodies. Miranda and Jacob clamored up behind him and he moved into the middle of the platform where a small orb awaited, slowly rolling towards the crates before stopping.<p>

He turned and saw a small blur in the air, he blinked and rubbed his eyes but just when he thought he was making out something he was blinded and his ears rang. He yelled and clutched his ears, the orb was freaking flashbang, someone wanted a sure getaway.

He rubbed his eyes and his vision returned to him, he looked at where the shape was but saw nothing, whoever, whatever it was had gotten away. Shepard blinked his eyes and looked back at Miranda and Jacob to see them doing the same thing as him.

"Well it looks like they got away," he said looking out in the direction of…whatever it was he saw.

"I'm sorry Commander," Miranda said rubbing her eyes, "but you're going to have to speak a little louder.

Shepard frowned and after a couple of minutes of recuperating, the trio began their trek back to Afterlife. Something was still bugging him though, all the bodies there were Blue Suns, nothing else, there wasn't even blood on the platform, whoever was there knew what they were doing.

"I don't think that'll be the last of them," Shepard said aloud as they continued their walk.

"What makes you say that?" Miranda asked.

"Well, let's look at what we have, practically nothing, which means they're professionals. If there's one thing the Illusive Man likes, gathering from what I've learned, he likes professionals, in fact I'm gathering a squad of professionals he found. I think it's only a matter of time really," he said.

"That's a bit over thinking it Commander, I'm sure the Illusive Man has reach, but I doubt he'd bother you with putting down or recruiting an organization, or a group at the least," Miranda countered.

Shepard shrugged, it was thinking a bit far ahead, but he just had that feeling, and if there was one thing Shepard knew to trust, it was a feeling.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Alright, not my best quality work, but i guess it isn't too bad, just kinda trying to progress the story as well as try to accommodate for what i have planned and find a way to get there. i'll tell you now guys, while some of you may think i'm good, i'm really not, so don't expect something godly every time you see this story updated. trust me i'll do what i feel is the best i can and if i feel i can't really clear what shitstorm i may brew, know that i am trying to try to do my best, it's like being almost almost at a place if you get that. anyway, thank you for reading this far if you have, R&amp;R, or don't in which case you can follow this, forsake it from your very existence so as to never see such a putrid piece of work ever again, or do whatever. as always criticism and ideas are appreciated, while both may be ignored or set aside, know that everything helps. thank you all again and have a wonderful time. Good Day.<br>**


	10. Chapter 9

Persecution Complex Ch. 9

Thealon sat calmly in his chair in the bridge as he saw the phantom disappear from view under the ship. He returned his attention to the holoscreens in front of him as he examined the data Mia had sent, as well as study the star maps to try and get an idea where any major system was or the location of the nearest fueling depot.

He held a hand over his jaws in thought as he looked at the equation that supposedly was going to assist in turning the fuel used in this galaxy into something they could use. "Ruby?" upon hearing her name, the AI appeared on the pedestal beside him, "Will this work? Do we even have the equipment capable of such a feat?"

His voice was etched with desperation behind all the calm, not that she could blame him. AI as she was she understood the survival instinct, for himself and his crew, this was their only chance at knowing if they'd be able to get out of this.

She raised a hand and shifted the equation, correcting several mistakes, "In fact, yes," she said intrigued as the numbers and symbols shifted. "While it was a rough guess and made by a younger individual, it provides the grounds of a more sophisticated and efficient way of altering the fuels properties and usage." After approximately .48 seconds after she had began altering the formula she had it figured out, she scanned the systems for anything that could be used to alter the basic fuel into their more advanced fuel. She found it in 1.023 seconds, "It is possible," she said at last and Thealon let out a relieved exhale.

"What is required?" he asked examining the equation, making a copy and sending it to Dr. Frey.

"Time, this galaxy's form of fuel, and this," the AI said pulling up a 3D model of a small can shaped device with tubes and electrical devices all over it. Thealon raised an eyebrow and looked at the crimson woman that was the ships AI with a generally confused look. "This is a YTF-9085 matrix converter, it was a very common piece of equipment in this universe, and with enough tinkering it can be used to sterilize and alter the properties of the standard fuel…"

"Into something we could use," he said quietly.

"Yes."

Thealon stared intently at the device floating in front of him, studying it carefully. Then, without taking his eyes off of it, "It's the 'was' that concerns me," he said glancing at the AI.

"I figured as much," she said with a small smile and closed her hands together, the image disappeared, when she opened her hands an image of the hangar opened up and Thealon looked confused as Kamau stepped out the Phantom in the hangar and was handed a small device by one of his troops. Kamau held it up to the light, it looked like a small can with tubes and small electrical devices covering it, though fairly rusty looking. "I heard them over their comms speaking of salvage they found," Ruby said with a grin and Thealon breathed a sigh of relief yet again. Kamau had yet again saved his skin and saved himself a trip back to the station.

"Tell him to bring it to Dr. Frey, see if you could help her 'tinker' with it," he said and the robed AI bowed and flickered out. Thealon sat back in his seat and rested his arms on the arm-rests as he thought. Frey and Mia were the only ones aboard with any real tech expertise, sure there was Romanouv, but Thealon wasn't sure if he could use…what was he thinking, Romanouv had installed one of the most complicated drive known to man at the time. He activated the intercom for the engine room, "Romanouv, report to the labs and meet with Dr. Frey, you'll be briefed when you get there."

"On my now right now sir," his response was and Thealon released the button and sat up straight. His eyes once again studied the bridge, several of the crew seemed like they were tired, Corporal Forress' neck seemed to be made of rubber as he fought to keep his eyes open, his head just spinning around lazily as he tried to make it look like he was just stretching his neck. Even Drex stretched his neck a bit and shook his head respectfully taking the cup of coffee Lieutenant Deatass offered him, she smiled and offered another to Haroum who declined, he was never one for caffeine.

Thealon took another minute or two to survey the bridge before standing, "Alright everyone," he said and everyone looked at him, "It's been a rough day or so, and I'm sure you're all very tired. Why don't you all go get some sleep. That's and order," everyone, despite their sleepiness, groaned and reluctantly got up and left, he checked to make sure the intercom was still on and smiled as he turned it off and filed out after Lt. Haroum. He saw everyone filing from their posts and going to their quarters besides essential crew members, who swapped positions with those who changed shifts with them.

He laid down in his bed, which was in his own private quarters not too far from the bridge, and stared at the ceiling. He thought, for that was all he felt he could do, his eyes were not heavy, his mind was still fully active. After several minutes he got up and walked down the hall and took the elevator to the mess hall and got a cup of water and sat down at the table. He rested his head in his hand as he swirled the clear liquid around in its container before taking a small sip of it. His advanced hearing picked up very quiet footsteps in the otherwise still room, he looked over and saw Ellenor walking up casually and saw him.

"Thealon," she greeted with a salute.

"At ease," he said tiredly, "What are you doing up, it's late and it's been a long day?"

She shrugged and sat down beside him, a single light overhead being the only light in the entire large room, "I could ask you the same thing."

He shrugged, "Thinking too much. As I am fond of saying, never leave a man to alone to think when he knows the situation he's in," he said and took another sip of the water.

She watched the cup in his hand as he drew it to his jaws and lowered it, she seemed in thought. "Worried about getting back?"

Thealon exhaled, "Isn't everyone?"

"Well of course," she said looking him in the eye calmly, "but not everyone thinks they are in charge of getting everyone back safely. Not everyone is you," she said and he glanced at her as she stared at him, she raised an eyebrow as he watched her.

He closed his eyes and sighed, "It's not easy, but someone has to do it, I doubt anyone envies me," he said opening his eyes and looking into the clear water. "You still have yet to answer my question," he reminded her with a small smile.

The Spartan shrugged, "Guess it could be the same reason, thinking too much, but I just don't feel tired. I don't think Vlad and Sloan are sleeping either but they stayed quiet when I got up. Not that I blame them, no one will be sleeping easy these first couple days," she said.

Thealon nodded, "I know…"

Ellenor frowned and looked at his cup, they were silent for a couple moments, she smiled a little and chuckled a little to herself in amusement. Thealon looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Just kinda funny, I was listening to two of the marines today, it appears some of the crew think we have a fling going or something," she said.

Thealon chuckled a little and shrugged, "Gods only know what makes people think such things," he said and finished his water. He paused and looked into the paper cup before setting it down, he smiled and shook his head. He looked at the Spartan and stood, patting her shoulder as he crushed the paper cup in his hand, "They're just jealous is all," he said and she laughed a little as he tossed out the cup. "Good night Ellenor, try to get some sleep, Gods only know what lies ahead, and we'll need all the energy we can spare."

* * *

><p>Shepard lay in his far <em>too<em> comfortable bed as he looked up at the stars through his skylight. He didn't feel tired, so what to do, what to do. He got up and walked over to his desk and thought a bit, first about the crew and Cerberus and all that. If there was one organization he didn't want to be working for it was Cerberus, but one thing was for sure, they had money, they had resources, and at the moment they were the only ones doing anything about the Collectors. They had given him his friends back, his ship, hell they had even given him his _life_ back, Lord only knows how they managed to pull _that _one off.

Speaking of his ship, while he liked the ship, he loved it really, he couldn't help but feel how…civilianized it was…if that was a word. Other than the giant gun battery and armory on the ship it just felt like a glorified civilian ship, a freaking cruise liner really were it not for its size.

Shepard took a deep breath, they had so far recruited Mordin and Garrus and were on their way to the Purgatory to pick up Jack the super biotic, after that they'd get Okeer. But there was something picking at his mind, two things really, one was what in the blue hell did they come across on Omega, something had managed to kill a whole group of Blue Suns and had escaped him. If he could find them, and they were willing, he bet they could be a valuable part of the team, that is if they weren't their own splinter group of some sort.

Only time could tell really, and then there was the other thing, he couldn't really put his finger on it, just an emptiness in him. Was it these god-forsaken cybernetics in him just making him feel this way? Then it hit him, what about Liara, he hadn't seen her on any of the dossiers, where was she, at the moment she was the only thing he felt he needed in all this crazy shit.

He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes with the pads of his fingers, shifting them to pinch the bridge on his nose as he lowered his hand a little and looked at his private terminal. A thought crossed his mind, he lowered his hand and opened his extranet browser and searched her name. There were articles of her being one of the youngest archeologists to date, interviews about her finds, more articles about her finding new Prothean ruins, a couple about her teaming up with Shepard and helping stop Saren. Nothing about where she was.

"Well damn," he said giving up the search and closing the laptop, "you're a real hard person to find when you wanna be dear," he said with a laugh and sat back in the chair. He let out a relaxed sigh and closed his eyes, now this was comfortable, he thought as drifted off thinking about what he would do next, who freaking knew what kind of things would be thrown his way and who knew just how bad they would be.

* * *

><p>Thealon opened his eyes looking right up at the ceiling, it was a moment before he blinked his eyes and looked around his quarters, nothing had changed, not that he had expected it to. He swung his legs off the bed and sat there with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands as he tried to fully wake himself up. He shook his head and stood, stretching a bit and fixing up his bed before putting on his armor. He looked at himself in the mirror and paused what he was doing, he felt the spot where his scar was on his chest, a long slash went diagonally from near his right shoulder to his left side.<p>

He thought back to all those years ago when he got this scar, many years ago when he was just an Ultra, leading a squad under Fortha Treltamee, his ship master. They went to a human colony and Thealon and his squad had shut down the perimeter defenses. Many aboard Fortha's ship were hesitant about his style of fighting and when he got groundside when the defenses were down is when all things went to Hell.

Thealon remembered it like it was yesterday, there he stood in the thick rain, watching the dark grey sky as rain pelted his armor and his men, but he stood his ground waiting for Fortha to land. It was time he was confronted about his ways, he was too merciless, to the point where it just dishonorable to watch and do nothing, he felt the humans deserved nothing like the filth they were. He didn't see them as the honorable foe that was resisting them with all their strength and survival, sure they fought dirty, but they fought desperately and to the last man, worthy as any Sangheili enemy, so why must they be treated less? If they went down this path it would lead to nothing but mistakes, terrible and impacting mistakes, so he had to be taken care of.

But he was guarded by some of his best and most trusted warriors, but Thealon had his own squad, his own friends and trusted warriors that saw his beliefs and the day before they had gathered together with the others who saw the way they did and it was decided. When Thealon gave the word they would fight and kill Fortha and the ones aboard the ship would kill those who were not willing to see the errors of their ways and leave Fortha.

Thealon watched the Phantom land and drop its occupants onto the ground, Thealon straightened, their men were evenly matched in numbers and strength, he knew and as Fortha walked forward, Thealon went to meet him.

"Ah Thealon, wonderful job taking care of the defenses, I hope the humans died slowly, yes?" he asked with a smile, Thealon kept his face straight as the rain pounded his mask and obscured anything that wasn't ten feet away practically.

"No Fortha," he said clenching his hands into fists, "they did not, they died quickly and honorably like the honorable foes they should be," he said taking his sword off his hip and pointing his finger at his Ship Master. "Any Sangheili can see that they are strong and have fought off the strength of the Covenant for five years. Why cannot they be allowed to join the Covenant, they fight for their survival, why should their fate be dictated by the words of the Prophets. Your tyranny ends tonight Fortha, I will not allow you to turn us away from the path of the Sangheili, what you do is not honorable, and I will not allow both of us to step onto that phantom," he shouted over the rain and Fortha stared at him. All joy that was in the Sangheili's face was gone, he had nothing but a stern, disappointed look on his face.

He took a deep breath and sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head, "Of all the spineless wimps aboard my ship I never expected you to mutiny Thealon. But I always thought if I were to die by anyone's hands it would be yours," he said taking his sword off his own sword out. "But if you want to die defending these filthy dishonorable creatures then so be it," he said snapping his arm down and activating his blade, "I will be sure to kill you quickly, that is the least I can do for you."

Thealon snapped his arm down and activated the blade, his friends behind him doing the same as well as Fortha's men. The swords hissed as the rain hit the blades and turned to vapor, Thealon raised his sword and circled with Fortha as he saw the blades of his men and Fortha's close in on each other.

And then Fortha struck, stepping in and backhanding the blade, Thealon deflected it and spun around the stab, coming up behind him and swinging down. Fortha blocked it and the blades sparked and sung as Thealon heard more blades ringing out as the men clashed around them. Fortha pushed up and followed it up with a swing that Thealon blocked, they each made their own attacks, each blocking and deflecting. They spun around each other, swinging and blocking even when their backs were turned to each other. Fortha ended it with a sweep kick, Thealon fell on his back and rolled away from the stab, pushing himself up rolling back away from the steaming blade. They ran at each other and clashed swords they held them against each other as sparks flew, each pushing harder and harder, each blade lighting the owners face it was so close. Fortha quickly removed his hand from his sword arm and punched Thealon in the gut, his strength faltering for a moment, it was all Fortha needed.

He shoved forward and Thealon stumbled back, Fortha swung his blade, hard, and when Thealon blocked it the sword flew from his hands. Fortha smiled and moved in for the kill, he made a downward diagonal cut, Thealon hopped back but not far or fast enough, the blade cut through is armor and skin. He hissed in pain as blood began pouring from the wound, he grabbed his chest and sank to his knees, time seemed to slow as he looked around, his men were watching, _his_ men. He turned his head and saw Fortha approaching and raising his sword, he closed his eyes and took a relaxing breath and opened his eyes.

Fortha swung the blade down and Thealon snapped his wrists out, activating his wrist blades, and drew his hands up to his head, the sword hissed on his blades. Fortha's eyes widened in shock and Thealon pushed up with all the strength he had left. His leg burned but he pushed up, he cried out as his chest did with him, he threw his arms up and out, effectively throwing Fortha's blade up. Thealon swung his arms around behind him and shoved them into Fortha's chest, the Sangheili choked and slumped onto Thealon's shoulder.

Fortha coughed up blood on Thealon's shoulder as he leaned on him and dropped his sword. He laughed with a hoarse throat, "Well done lad," a deep cough, "well done, I guess I had it coming huh?" he said weakly.

Thealon deactivated his blades and caught his Ship Master, "I did not hate you Fortha, only your ways," he said quietly and he felt the Sangheili nod.

"I know…I know, you'll make a fine leader some day Thealon, a fine one indeed," he said calmly. Fortha let out one last breath, "It's a fine planet this one you know," he said as Thealon set him on the ground gently looking up at the sky as the sun peeked through the clouds. "Quite beautiful indeed," he said closing his eyes.

Thealon rested on one knee, his knuckles in the mud as he breathed heavily, one hand clutching his bleeding chest as he said a silent prayer for his former Ship Master. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked back, he only had four men left, but they had won. "Come on Ship Master, we need to get you medical aid," his friend said and wrapped an arm under Thealon's and assisted him to the phantom.

"No," he said heavily, "I'm no Ship Master, Gods help me if ever I am one. Maybe another time in another life, but not now, I do not deserve such a title. We'll sort it out once we're on the ship," he said and his friends nodded and bowed to him as the phantom doors closed and the ship took off.

* * *

><p>Thealon felt the wound and sighed as he put his armor on, thankfully it had been a very minor wound, it had only cut the skin and didn't even get through the ribs. He had to stay bedridden for over a week though while the wound healed, his skin sewing itself back together and the ribs, what didn't heal on its own was filled with an ancient mix that replaced the lost bone when hardened.<p>

He walked over to his desk and grabbed his helmet, he held it in his hands, looking at it blankly for a few seconds before turning it around and placing it on his head, it snapped into place on his head and Thealon took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror. His crew was counting on him, he had to find a way for them to survive, death was no excuse, they had come too far to give up now. He took a deep breath and walked out of his room to check up on Dr. Frey and see how far they had gotten with the device.

It seemed that Romanouv proved invaluable in the altering of the device, between Ruby, Frey, and Romanouv they had come up with a flawless way to use the device in the fuel system to convert the basic fuel into theirs. And after they had used what fuel was recovered they tested it to find it worked perfectly. They had just enough to get to another fueling depot and after a long, troublesome conversation with the ones running it, they sent humans aboard to get fuel, which they put on the phantom, brought to the _Nero _and filled it fully and still had enough to fill an extra tank to full, just in case.

And so over the course of the several days it took to sort that out they planned where they would go next and was decided that it was best to visit this Citadel and meet with the Council. If Thealon could get everything right, hopefully they'll go completely unnoticed and unrecorded. It was a two day journey through Slipspace and they made sure they were still well out of sensor range before activating their stealth systems and sending this Council a message.

It was long before they got a reply, decrypted and –coded it said that they would agree to a meeting if first they were to reveal themselves. So they organized a meeting area that was chosen by the Council with which they would meet.

"Zakera Ward? Where in the Prophet's ass is the Zakera Ward?" Thealon asked aloud slightly angry as he was getting frustrated with this Council. It was like trying to have a casual conversation with a glorified San'Shyuum. Ruby had a smug smile on her face as she watched him and looked at a 3D map of the Citadel and pinpointed the place on which they were to meet. "Thank you," he said chuckling a bit as he felt stupid for getting angry. "Inform the Spartans, Kamau, and Dr. Frey to get ready to go to the Citadel, Drex, you too, let's go," he called up front and Drex nodded. They walked out together and Thealon met everyone at the hangar as a Phantom was prepped, he saw the huragok Too Light going about his business and asked him to join them, he happily obliged. He stepped aboard and looked at everyone in the ship as he nodded and banged on the door to the cockpit. The ship pulled up and Dr. Frey, small as she was and unable to grab the handholds, stumbled, Kamau placed a hand on her shoulder without looking. When the ship had left the hangar and began its smooth ride he looked at her and patted her shoulder before moving his hand.

After several minutes the ship slowed down and slowly lowered, Thealon nodded to everyone and stepped over to the gravity pad.

* * *

><p>Tevos, the asari Councilor, sat with the ever impatient Sparatus, the turian Councilor and Valern, the Salarian Councilor, Anderson was awaiting Shepard in his office but until they were done here Shepard would have to wait. They had been there for about half an hour after leaving the Citadel tower to meet this supposed 'new species' but they wanted to keep their presence hidden so this meeting was to be in an isolated area. They had, of course, arrived with a small task force to keep them safe, but the only reason they had come here was due to the nature and description of the message.<p>

"This had better not be a hoax, there wasn't even a ship on the sensors," Sparatus said with crossed arms, it wasn't too often the Council left the Citadel tower either, only on rare and important occasions mostly. Tevos understood his frustration but they had to be calm and patient.

"Patience Sparatus, I'm sure if they wanted this to be a public matter then they wouldn't have cared if they appeared on sensors. Just give them time," she said and the turian scoffed a little as he looked around. Valern seemed to squint as he looked at something, Tevos noticed this, "Do you see something Valern?" she asked looking at where he was.

He remained quiet for a moment, "If I know stealth as well as I think I do, then maybe…" he said and before any of them knew it, a large purple ship faded into existence where before there was nothing but air.

All three Councilors seemed shocked as the ship lowered closer to the ground but was still a good 25 feet or so off the ground. The guards all tensed and some raised their guns, Sparatus signaled them to ease up and they did.

"Still think it's a hoax?" Tevos asked rhetorically as they watched a light form on the bottom of the ship and all three of their eyes widened as a figure dropped slowly out of the ship with his hands behind his back. When he landed, the alien looked up and two more like him came down followed by three tall armored figures that looked spookily human. In truth all of them were armored, all about seven feet tall, and all very intimidating as the five behind the first alien carried weapons. But the first one seemed confused and continued looking up the light beam, then two more figures came down, to all the three Councilors surprise, a human in a lab coat paired with a creature similar to a Hanar.

The bulbous creature however floated above the ground and had six eyes, three black orbs on each side of its long head, there was no apparent mouth on it. The first alien that had come down nodded when the two landed and he walked over to them, they expected a long time spent on the language barrier, but they were shocked when he placed a fist to his chest and bowed.

"Councilors I would presume, I am Rioc'Thealon. My friends call me Thealon," he said with a tough voice, but they understood him to their shock. "I am Shipmaster of the ship the _Nero_ and my intentions here are non-hostile I promise you."

Tevos looked at her fellow Councilors in shock and opened her mouth, she was half expecting him to understand but I couldn't hurt, "Greetings Shipmaster," she said calmly. "I am Tevos, the asari Councilor, this is Sparatus the turian Councilor, and Valern the salarian Councilor," she said watching him carefully and he nodded to each one of them. "If you don't mind me asking," she began.

"How is it we understand you and you us?" he finished with a cocked eyebrow, she nodded. "I will get to that, these are my companions," he said waving to the group behind him, one reminded Tevos of a very tall quarian. "This is Kamau'Orthel, Drex'Yulta, Vlad, Sloan, Ellenor, Elizabeth Frey, and Too Light," he said introducing them in the line they were standing in. The human, the normal looking one at least, seemed very excited and was trying and failing to contain it. "Drex, Kamau, and I are all Sangheili, Vlad, Sloan, Ellenor, and Dr. Frey are all human, as I assume you know, and Too Light is a huragok, an engineer race very skilled with technology. I apologize for the lengthy introduction but I feel all who are with me are worthy of being named," he said and the three Councilors nodded.

"Now I believe you asked how it was we understood each other, yes?" he asked and Tevos nodded. "I would assume you all know English, a widely used human language?" he asked and again they nodded, "Well as you can see we have humans with us, I promise you that while this may be lengthy and hard to understand or comprehend do trust me." He almost seemed to be pleading, hoping they would understand something, again, they nodded. "As of one week and two days ago we entered your…galaxy and were attacked by a synthetic species you call the geth, is that right?" they looked among themselves cautiously and Tevos nodded. "After this attack we were contacted by a race you call the quarians, upon meeting with them we acquired a universal translator for all known languages. That should hopefully answer several of your questions," he finished and waited them to say something.

Sparatus spoke up, "How is it you know the humans then?" he asked suspiciously.

Thealon took a deep breath, touchy subject maybe? "It is a complicated story, and as I have said, while it is confusing and will be hard to believe I hope you can put enough trust in me to believe it," the councilors nodded again and he began. "Where we came from humans were at war with a power of several races under one pact, this power was the Covenant, my race was the leading military power and all followed under the Prophet's word, our leaders. The humans were considered filth, an abomination and we were told by our 'magnificent' Prophets," he said with disgust in his voice, "that they were unworthy of the Great Journey, the religion for which we followed. And so for many years humans fought against galactic genocide, each world which was found inhabited by them was glassed until we reached earth. There the Prophets betrayed the Sangheili, and our Arbiter, a very powerful religious figure important to our kind even before the joining of the Covenant, lead us against them.

"We learned that the rings, the Halo's as they were called, once sacred to us, were really super weapons designed by a long dead race to wipe out all life in the galaxy to protect us from the parasite known as the flood." As he finished he turned and held up his hand to Dr. Frey, she put a small device in his had and he held it up, a blue hologram grew from his hand and showed a small diseased looking animal as it skittered around. "This is the Flood, it is a parasite that has one goal, to further its species, and to do that, they killed everything in their path and brought the dead back to life," his face was dead serious and his tone was full of content as the creature shrunk and multiplied. The small bulbous things jumped onto a human and he panicked, flailing his arms as the things overpowered him and he fell to the ground dead. Suddenly one of the things buried itself in him and he started to flail about, his skin turned pale and growths grew on him and burst and kept grew until it grew a giant claw from its arm and three little antennae stuck out of his chest. His head was limp and lifeless in a look of pain as it was pushed away from where it was, the head resting on the shoulder at on awkward angle, the creature turned and jumped with its claw held in the air, Thealon turned off the hologram.

Tevos felt her stomach turn, "As you can imagine we made it our priority to end this threat and upon finding the control house for the Halo's known as the Ark," the hologram appeared to show what looked almost like the Citadel except with more arms and it appeared to have water and land at the base. It also looked much bigger, "There the Arbiter and a famous figure known as Spartan John-117 killed the last and most powerful Prophet." The hologram showed three figures, one looked like Thealon in silver, old looking armor, another looked somewhat like the people he had with him and the third was a small looking man and the one like Thealon grabbed what they assumed was the Prophet and stabbed him through the chest, it ended.

"And the war was over upon the destruction of the Ark, we tell you this to let you know of our different histories and our stories so as to make what I am about to tell you more believable. We were testing an experimental SlipSpace drive, a reverse-engineered Forerunner drive that is, and upon making a jump the drive…" he hesitated and looked back at his crew for a moment before looking at the Councilors again. "Malfunctioned. We dropped out of SlipSpace and that was when we attacked by the geth. We have pieced together that we are in a completely different galaxy, your galaxy. Sangheilios, our homeworld, is gone, there is nothing here that is familiar other than earth. All I wish is for your cooperation in the future, a place to stay should we require one, and…your trust."

The three Councilors looked among themselves, it was a lot to take in, but all things considering they weren't asking for much, they weren't asking for a seat on the Council, they weren't challenging them to come fight them. They just wanted to survive and while the trust may be hard to just hand out, it will certainly be earned more and more in the future, they weren't threatening them and they definitely didn't look like the betraying kind. They reached a silent consensus among themselves.

Tevos looked at the Sangheili, "Shipmaster Thealon, we welcome you to the Citadel, as long as you are cooperative with us and promise to never harm an ally unless truly necessary then we welcome you with open arms," she said with a smile and held out her hand. The Sangheili, while it was hard to tell with the four mandibles, looked like he was smiling and grabbed her hand with his powerful four fingered one and shook it, doing likewise with every other Councilor and bowed.

"I appreciate your cooperation, I understand that it was hard to comprehend it all, we still haven't gotten over the shock truthfully, but we need allies in this foreign place and I appreciate all that you are doing for us. What we asked for I hope was little in return for your kindness, and I do ask that we keep this secret, when we wish to fully reveal our presence we shall, do not expect it to be long though." He looked among his companions and nodded, several of them, Drex, Sloan, Vlad, and Ellenor all walked back to the ship and were sucked in through the beam of light. Tevos marveled at the technology, and she thought the asari were far along in technology.

"If you don't mind me asking," she said shifting her gaze to Thealon, "do you operate on mass effect technology, you were speaking about Slipspace and I think it's safe to say we don't know what that is?" she offered and the other two Councilors nodded.

Thealon looked among them, "While I know how our history differs, where we came from it was 2592," they seemed visibly shocked at this. "I apologize if I withhold the specifics of our technology. But I will tell you now, no, we do not use what you call mass effect technology, what we achieved in space travel and advancement in travel were all on our own, not all of it was reverse-engineered, only most of the later advances. Such as the technology that unwittingly got us here," he mumbled. It was something of a shock to hear, they didn't know just how advanced they truly were, but what they have they achieved on their own. "But if you have any more questions myself or Dr. Frey here will answer, if not I would assume she has some of her own." And so for the next half hour or so questions were asked and answered in the best way they could be, if the question was deserving of an answer or not.

The huragok, Too Light, drifted around and picked up a gun that was against a wall, it belonged to one of the C-Sec officers who had set it down and was talking with some of his buddies. The officer turned and was about to say something to the huragok as it picked up the gun with its tentacles, but then it dismantled the gun in only a few seconds, the parts lying about neatly. Everyone watched as it picked up some pieces and examined them, it constructed the gun several times in several different ways before purring to himself and reassembling the gun the way it was and handing it to the stunned officer.

"Thank you again Councilors, I appreciate your cooperation and I hope we can do this again some time," Thealon bowed and everyone with him walked up to the ship, Frey thanking and shaking the hands of each of the Councilors before practically skipping back to the ship. Thealon watched her suppressing a chuckle and shrugged to the Councilors before stepping into the beam himself and being lifted off the ground into the ship. Which after a moment rose and simply faded from sight as it activated its stealth systems, even those seemed more advanced than theirs. From what they could tell by the refracted light they watched it take off and leave until it just became impossible to see where it had gone.

"That explains why we couldn't pick them up on radar," Valern said with a shrug before turning and walking back to the shuttle-car.

Tevos and Sparatus followed when her omni-tool buzzed, she answered it, "Yes Anderson?" she asked.

"Shepard has arrived whenever you're finished with that…thing, you know," he said and Tevos nodded as she climbed into the shuttle-car and buckled.

"We just finished up here, we'll be there shortly," she replied as she felt the vehicle rise and take off.

"We'll be here," he said and ended the call.

"Well, time to take care of another problem," Sparatus scoffed and Tevos shrugged.

"I would think dealing with a supposedly dead Spectre that now works with Cerberus might be more interesting than just a problem," she said and the turian shrugged.

"Whatever it may be, it should definitely be interesting to see what he has to say for this one."

"That we can all agree on," Valern said and Tevos shrugged as she looked out the window at the rushing traffic.


	11. Chapter 10

Persecution Complex Ch. 10

Thealon sat in the mess hall with his meal in front of him as he stared at it blankly, absorbed in thought. He had brushed up again on all current and past events, through the codex they had received from the quarians and what this galaxy called the extranet. He learned of the geth and realized his previous thought of the quarians and their exile was terrible, he found it worse upon rereading the codex article. He had thought they were exiled 200 years ago when in reality it was 300, _300_ years without a homeworld, with nothing but a degrading immune system and the biggest fleet in the galaxy in which you have nothing to do but fly around with in only certain places. Along with that he had read things about the geth and their involvement in the attack on the Citadel and their supposed flagship Sovereign.

Here is where things got very interesting in Thealon's mind. This human, Commander Shepard had attacked a planet that was being used by a rogue Spectre, Saren, in his head a police officer with diplomatic immunity, it didn't sit right in his belly really to have a force like that. But that wasn't for him to decide, anyway, Shepard infiltrated Saren's base of operations and spoke to this flagship and learned of the 'truth' of the Reaper threat. The sketchiness begins at this point really, because Shepard, the one who spoke with this sentient starship doomsday device, knew of this true threat but upon the death of Sovereign, Shepard was ridiculed for his thoughts that the Reapers existence. They, as in the Council and everyone else who ignored Shepard's warnings and words, dismissed the existence of the Reapers. Claiming that Saren was very persuasive and had convinced the geth into believing his ship, that apparently he must have built in secret, was one of their Reaper machine god race.

Even as Thealon looked at it he felt like backhanding some sense into the council and everyone else, he was new to this galaxy and he could see through the sham that the Council blamed on Shepard's 'post-traumatic stress'. And no more than a few months later, Shepard is killed in an ambush by an unknown enemy force that disappears afterward. It's been two years since then and there have been reports of missing colonies on the edge of the terminus system, a part of the galaxy outside Citadel, and therefore Council, jurisdiction. Human colonies. Thealon had felt a pang of sorrow as he was reminded of that Gods forsaken war, he hoped this was not the same though.

Several fingers were pointed at batarian slavers, but there was no sign of battle or struggles, nothing seems to be put out of place other than missing timeframe footage from security cameras. Oh and every single man, woman, and child seemed to have just gotten up and left without a trace in the world, suspicious, he hoped to Gods so.

But as he thought he heard a tray slam down beside him, followed by two more, he looked up and saw the Spartans joining him.

"You know, the food's going to get cold if you keep staring at it like a hot date," Sloan said with a smile and Thealon chuckled with a smile and shook his head a little.

"On a side note, you feeling alright Thealon?" Ellenor asked, concerned.

Thealon shrugged with something of a frown, "Just thinking again, going over what we know," he said and finally took the first bite of his food.

"Anything we can use to help us?" Vlad asked.

Thealon thought about it and shook his head, "No, not that I know of right now, but we need to plan what our next move is, figure out what of importance we can be of here." They all seemed to frown at that, "At the moment though, I think our first priority should be sorting out when we feel like we should reveal ourselves to this Citadel. We met with the Council no more than a day ago so I say we give it one or two more before we do anything and we can just work it out from there." The Spartan's all watched him and nodded and glanced between themselves.

Ellenor gestured with her head to Thealon when she was looking at Vlad, "Um," he cleared his throat, "Thealon, we uh, we noticed you seemed to be avoiding certain questions. At first we thought nothing of it, but on the Citadel when the...who are they, the blue women with the tentacles?" he said with a gesture to his head when looking at Sloan.

He shrugged, "I think it was asari or something?" he looked to Thealon for confirmation, he nodded.

"When the asari asked you about our technology you hesitated when you were talking about what happened to the slipspace drive," he said watching for any signs Thealon might give up in his body language.

Thealon closed his eyes and sighed, he should have known he couldn't dodge this forever, "After we had dropped from Slipspace," he began quietly, "Ruby ran multiple checks on the drive, she found it was sabotaged, whether by a signal or directly is unknown. Were we to activate the drive now it is sure to work, but if we wish to return home we may need to replicate what was used in order to do so. And to figure out how to do so, we need to figure out who it was and without any evidence about what caused the sabotage as well as motives, we have nothing." The Spartans stared at him, all of them had straight faces as they listened and understood.

"So what do we do next then?" Sloan asked, "I mean, how will we find a way to find this guy?"

Thealon shook his head, "I wish I knew, but right now, we need to think about what's in front of us and the most immediate threat." Before they had the chance to try and correct him, "And yes, I know what you're about to say, but Ruby doubts that if they're aboard they'd do anything at the moment, nor has she detected anything in the system, and I trust her."

The Spartans nodded, they looked among each other and at Thealon as they finally began to eat their meal. "What do you think we can get from this Citadel when we reveal ourselves?" Sloan asked, "I mean sure, we'd be the talk of the place and surrounded by press for a while, and it makes a good supply post, but do you think it'll really help us in the long run?"

"Well that's just it really, we'll need supplies, we'll need information, but for what I do not know. For now though it is good to be in the Council's favor, now we don't have to do any recon missions aboard the place to map it out or shady operations to get what we need. If we were to get caught, questions would arise, tensions with those, and soon mistrust and unwillingness to cooperate," Sloan thought about it for a second before nodding.

"So tomorrow huh?" Vlad asked after a minute of silence.

"That's the plan," from there I think we'll dock for maybe two days at most and then head to the planet known as Illium. From what I've heard it's just a shiny Omega really," he said and Ellenor frowned a little but it quickly disappeared, "but we're going there for information. I have a theory, a very outrageous and wild one, but if true then it will be beyond comprehension," he said.

"Pft," Sloan said messing with his meal, "with what happened at Requiem nothing will surprise me at this point."

"Ah, but this and theory go hand in hand," he said and Sloan gave him an odd look, a curious but cautious one as he glanced as his fellows. "If we were capable of getting here through Forerunner technology, accident or not, that wasn't even a full-fledged Forerunner drive. They were far beyond any of our technological advances by hundreds of years, who's not to say they may have come here once, maybe twice?"

"No offense sir," Vlad said cautiously, "but that's a pretty wild accusation."

"It is, I will not deny it, but possible isn't it? And if I am wrong, then I am wrong, and we would just have to find something else to do, but if we do, we're talking possibly live Forerunners who have survived the firing of the Halo's."

"Or we could run into more of those Prometheans," Sloan said with a cocked eyebrow.

"Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell," he finished with a shrug. "As I was saying, however, we will head to Illium in search of information, there is plenty to be shared if you know how to obtain it."

"And how do you plan on obtaining it?" Ellenor asked suspiciously.

"By asking, surely," he said with a smile, "who wouldn't want to help the new guys in town, work out a contract with a deadly catch, obtain some technology, trade information maybe. While we are upon the verge of a path I do not wish to take, it is one I fear we must for hopefully a short time, I do not wish to dishonor myself and my old friends through a hypocritical act such as the ones we will take." He sighed, his smile long gone from his face, "But I fear it must be done, lest we just wander this galaxy endlessly."

The Spartans nodded, he had told them many war stories and they figured they knew of the one he was talking about. "Well whatever you decide Thealon, we will be backing you 100 percent, Ship Master, sir!" Ellenor said with a salute, Sloan and Vlad doing the same.

Thealon had a sad smile on his face, but nodded and resumed eating, "Feet first into Hell itself."

* * *

><p>Drex was sitting at his console on the bridge when Thealon walked in, everyone looked at him expecting the words the wished to exit his mouth, and they did. "Everyone bring us closer to the Citadel, Ruby, deactivate all stealth systems, it's time they learned of our presence." Drex had a smug smile on his face as he turned around and flipped three switches and looked out the main viewing port as he saw the space station increase in size.<p>

"Unknown ship, this is the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel defense fleet, state your business and name," came a female voice over the intercom.

Thealon pointed to Ensign Forrel and the woman nodded and activated the holoprojector, a woman bathed in blue and with tentacles on her head stood at attention. She was very surprised when she laid eyes upon Thealon though, her posture showing, "I am Rioc'Thealon of the Destroyer class vessel _Nero_…"

* * *

><p>"We mean no one any harm, we simply wish to negotiate a truce with your leaders and a place to gather supplies," Sallie L'Faide looked at the figure with awe from her spot on the command deck of the <em>Destiny Ascension<em>. Everything about him screamed military and obedience, he was fairly intimidating as he stood to scale with her asari captain, easily putting a foot or two on her.

Sallie felt an elbow nudge her ribs, and flinched at the feel, she hated it when people did that to her, it just felt so weird. She looked at her friend next to her, Rya, "Pst, Sallie," she said with a childish smile on her face. "I know we just met the guys, but he's quite the hunk of meat, don't you say," she said with a wink and girlish chuckle as Matriarch Lidanya spoke with the alien.

While Sallie had to admit, she liked the looks and the formality of the alien, this was a formal meeting, and she wasn't going to commit to anything till she learned at least a little bit about them. "How big is that thing anyway, seems pretty small from this distance?" She asked Rya being as how she had the view of the forward cameras and the rangefinder, Sallie just was in charge of communications.

Rya shrugged and pulled up a view, "Well it doesn't look that big," she said with another shrug and Sallie leaned over and took a peak. It was very interesting ship, nothing like anything she ever had seen before but it did seem like it was a little while out. She looked at the alien as he continued to converse with the Matriarch, she wondered how it was they understood each other, what kind of technology they had, they had remained completely undetected until only a few minutes ago and that was just out of complete nowhere. Who knew how long they could have been watching, or just how long ago they had actually arrived and how.

She was so caught up in her thoughts her face burned with embarrassment when Matriarch Lidanya shouted at her to come back from 'La-La Land' and send word to the Citadel. When they had got a reply, Sallie relayed the message to the Matriarch and looked at Rya and almost laughed. Her eyes were just so wide and her mouth had fallen a little as she looked at the screen, Sallie looked over with a smug smile to see what the fuss was about when she too found herself with the same face.

The ship was MASSIVE, easily almost three times the size of the _Destiny Ascension_, a.k.a. the largest ship yet seen by man, asari, turian, etc. Sallie looked out the main port and saw as many of her fellows basically got out of their seats as the ship closed in for a pass, not only was it massive, it was _fast_.

Sallie fell back in her seat and placed a hand to her forehead and laughed stupidly as she thought about the last about 15 minutes, "Rya, I think I'll take you up on that offer, drinks on the Citadel?" she asked. Rya looked at her confused for a moment before she caught her drift and smiled and winked, they fist-bumped and both sat back in their chairs with satisfied smiles.

* * *

><p>Drex walked out of the Citadel Tower elevator with Thealon, Kamau, and the Spartans as they took their first technically legal steps onto the Presidium. Thealon breathed a sigh of relief and turned to them, "All of you may do as you please for a day or so and before reporting back to the <em>Nero<em>, I will head back and inform the crew of the same thing," he said before smiling, "Enjoy." With that he turned and walked back to where the Phantom waited to take him to the ship, avoiding several reporters in the process. A minute or so after he went up the gravity lift, some of the elites and humans that were aboard dropped down, well the elites just decided to jump, but none the less. Drex stood next to Kamau as the Spartans just went off together, some of the Sangheili that dropped down came over to them, but none that dropped out went off without at least one other partner.

Drex smiled beneath his mask and gave Kamau a nudge, "Come, Kamau, you and I haven't a drink in ages, and this is quite the occasion no?"

He could tell the Sangheili was amused but nodded, "Indeed friend, let us decide if the Gods gave this galaxy good brewers," he said, "I'm not one for drinking, neither of us are, but we can both agree on a good drink." With that they wandered around for a while, making sure they kept an updated map with them so they didn't get lost before they found what they assumed was a bar, after of course they realized they had something of a crowd following them.

"Quiet sons of bitches when they wanna be," Drex commented to one of his Sangheili companions who nodded and glanced back at the small crowd as they walked into the bar. "I sense a reoccurring theme with bars in this galaxy," he said to Kamau as he saw the strippers dancing on poles and tables above and around the bar.

"At least our dancers have pride," Kamau scoffed as they found a seat at the bar while the others just moseyed around, seemingly avoiding any woman in a tight clothing as much as possible.

A fine looking asari came up to them with a smile and placed her arm on the bar, "You the new guys huh?" she asked with a voice to match as Kamau and Drex removed their helmets and set them on the bar. Kamau nodded, "Alright," she said with a sly smile, "amino- or dextro-?" she asked, they were confused for a moment when they realized she was talking about their protein make-up.

"Amino," Kamau said, "Anything you got I would guess," the asari winked.

"I think I got just the thing for you guys," she said and reached down and pulled out a cylindrical bottle with a neon orange liquid and two shot glasses and poured them each a glass. "Cheers," she said with a smile and the two of them raised the glasses and drank the glasses, relatively unaffected by the drink, but it did have a nice taste. She seemed a little surprise at how unaffected they were, "No offense guys, but, heavy drinkers?" she asked.

"Hardly," Drex said with as smile and the doors opened to allow a small group of asari to enter the bar, many of them going about their business, but two walked over to the bar and sat on either side of Kamau and Drex.

"Hey guys, new in town huh?" the one beside Drex asked with a kind, but daring smile.

"One could say," Drex replied, nodding to the bartender, Kamau as well.

"This bottle's on the house just for you two, how's about?" she asked and the two nodded again, they had forgotten about that. The bartender poured the two of them another glass and the two asari ordered their own drinks, Kamau and Drex again swallowed their drinks and set down the glasses, again unaffected.

The two asari looked a little surprised but both smiled, "Heavy drinkers much?" she asked.

"Psh, that's what I said," the bartender said as she cleaned a glass and served a drink to a human a little down the bar.

"Why do you ask?" Drex asked the asari, "Miss…?" he said swirling his hand a little bit.

"My apologies, I'm Sallie, Sallie L'Faide, and this is my friend Rya," she said shaking Drex's hand as he held it still for her.

"Hello," Rya said seductively to Kamau, his raised an eyebrow as he looked at her as the bartender returned and poured them all glasses as Sallie and Rya quickly drank their purple liquid drinks.

"So what is so special about these drinks that we are accused of being heavy drinkers every time we take a drink?" Drex asked Sallie but expected the answer from the bartender.

He was not disappointed, "It's one of the best drinks we have, has a pretty heavy kick to it, the fact you two don't seem to mind drinking it at all just…ya know," she said and the two Sangheili shrugged.

"Where we come from the drinks burn your throats and boggle the mind if you're young. Truthfully though, I don't think either of us have had a drink in what, thirty years?" Kamau said.

"I wouldn't count that time, bloody human tried to poison us," Drex said sipping his drink.

The three asari were extremely confused, "Wait, how do you know humans if you guys are new here, what haven't the humans been telling us?" Ria asked in sudden interrogation mode.

Kamau calmly finished his drink, "It's a long, boring tale, and one I do not think you will understand," he said looking at the asari.

"And why not?"

Kamau sighed and shook his head, "Very well then, it began, for us, about 60 years ago…"

And so Drex and Kamau sat at the bar having very few drinks when their bottle was finished between the two of them as they explained to the three asari the perils of their war with the humans. They explained their religion and corrupted Prophets, the discovery of the Halos and the learning of their true purpose, they explained their war with the parasite and the human hero John-117 and their Arbiter. They explained the ending of the war and even pulled out their handheld holoprojectors as they told their tale, they had a couple more people listen in or huddle around as they explained. They showed them of the Flood, the ark, the Halos, everything, everything until they finally finished by telling them of how they showed up to how they got to this galaxy and how they found the Citadel.

"And so concludes the marvelous tale," Drex said with a scoff and had, what he planned on, his last glass.

"Shee-it," one of the humans who had gathered said.

The bartender, thankfully, started clearing the crowd out, "Alright people, stories over, leave the guys to their drinks, come on," she said and the small crowd eventually dispersed.

"Thanks for that," Kamau said.

"Anytime," she said kindly with a smile and a wink.

"That…that's a lot to take in," Sallie said as she thought about the story.

Kamau scoffed, "Try being right dead in the middle of it, I won't go into detail, but it's not fun," he said finishing his last glass. "I think I'm done for now," he said, "Thank you for the drinks."

"No problem dear, name's Selera Liran," she said and they bowed their heads.

"I am Kamau Orthel, and this is Drex'Yulta," Kamau said and the bartender nodded.

"Well you two are welcome here any time," she said and they nodded.

"Don't expect to see us too much in any case, but thank you," Drex said.

Drex and Kamau both put their helmets on and Rya, who up to this point was relatively quite a bit drunk, smiled as she touched the side of Kamau's helmet, "You're like one big, buff, quarian...I like it," she said with a smile.

Kamau gently grabbed her hand and lowered it, "And you ma'am are quite drunk, I'd hope your friend is not or else I think the responsible thing to do would at least walk you back to some of your friends."

Sallie looked up, she had been having few drinks and was still thinking a bit when she noticed Kamau was referring to her, "Don't worry, I'm still fine, just a little tired is all. Come on Rya, I think we'd better head back before Matriarch Lidanya throws a fit, been nice meeting you two," she said getting up and wrapping an arm around the other asari's shoulder and nodding to them before carrying her away.

Kamau watched them walk out before looking around the bar at some of the other Sangheili, they sat at tables mostly with their helmets on the table, conversing between either themselves or others. One was leaning against a wall watching everyone as a waitress came up and offered a drink, he declined and the human shrugged and walked away.

"Well I think we had better get to the phantom, hopefully we can still remember the way, thank you again for the drinks, it's been an honor," Kamau said and Drex nodded and got up with him.

"Honor's all mine, you two seem like a good bunch, I live around here if you ever wanna talk, good luck," she said and the two of them nodded and walked to the door. All the other Sangheili noticed and dropped what they were doing, ending conversations respectfully and following Kamau and Drex. None of them were drunk from what they could tell, they knew not to do such a thing, not that any of the drinks here seemed half as strong as a Sangheili brew, but they were alright.

"I could use relaxing vacations like these more often, that felt nice," Drex said and Kamau shrugged and they continued their walk back. Some of the other Sangheili were already aboard the phantom when they got back, most of them asleep as they had waited for the others to come back. Drex, Kamau, and some of the other Sangheili sat down and waited for, by the looks of it, only the Spartans to return.

After a while Kamau got up, unable to sleep he decided to go for a walk, one of his men saw him get up, "Would you like some company sir?" he asked Kamau shook his head.

"No thank you, I just need some air, I shouldn't be too long," he said and the elite nodded before sitting back and kicking his legs up, returning to trying to sleep. Kamau decided to just take the gravity lift, it was quieter than having to ask the pilot to open the doors so he could jump, and just far less of a hassle. He activated a bread crumb trail on his HUD so if he needed to find his way back when he was lost he'd just follow the arrow. After several minutes he found himself in familiar territory, it was darker out and less people, but the basic landmarks were distinguishable enough.

He was walking down a pathway when he heard bickering, curiosity got the better of him as it piqued a gut feeling. He activated his suits camouflage and snuck to a wall and flattened against it, he could now make out the fighting as he peeked around the corner carefully. His eyes narrowed as he saw what looked like the two asari from earlier, they were being cornered by a big alien and he thought a turian, the larger alien was obscuring his view. If his memory served him correctly the larger alien was a krogan, and if the other was in fact a turian then it may be a hard duel, hopefully it didn't come down to that, but he hoped they had their fair share of drinks.

"Come on ladies, we only wanna play, we won't hurt you," the confirmed turian said with a laugh.

"Much, heh heh heh," the krogan said in a deep voice, the asari, Sallie, the only one upright as Rya seemed unconscious on the floor, stood and held a defensive pose.

"Leave us alone, and none of you get hurt," she threatened as she glowed blue, interesting Kamau. The turian seemed to ease off a little, but didn't give in and the krogan simply laughed as he made his move and tried to grab her. Sallie quickly focused on her target and punched the air in front of her, a blue bolt came flying from her hand and shoved the krogan back a little, but it only seemed to make him angrier.

That's when Kamau made his move, he rounded the corner as the turian grabbed the asari's hand and pulled her toward him. Kamau grabbed the korgans shoulder and swept a leg in front of the aliens left one and slammed him to the ground head first as his camo deactivated and the turian and asari looked at him in shock as he drew his fist back.

He smashed his fist into the turians face and grabbed his arm with the same hand and threw him off the girl, which he shoved to the ground with his other hand as the krogan got up and roared in anger as he charged Kamau. He grabbed the krogans fist as it came down and continued its momentum away from him, doing so with the next fist and sidestepping around the alien as he tried to head-butt Kamau.

He placed his hands on the krogans shoulders and drove his foot into the back joint of the krogans left leg and it crumpled, he threw him forward into a wall as he shoved a fist from the turian aside and caught him with a left hook as he held the turians arm. He backhanded the turian and kneed him in his groin region, not sure if it would have the same impact as it would on a human, it didn't. He did stumbled the turian a bit and cause him to hiss in pain, but he hit Kamau in the face, not doing much if any damage but he did get a hit on.

Kamau instead decided to used the turians thin clothing to his advantage, trying to hurry as he heard the krogan groan as he stirred, and jabbed the turian in the side under where his ribs would be. Contrary to the rest of the turians body, it appeared that that spot was a bit softer than the usually hardened carapace that was the rest of his body. The turian crumpled under this blow and Kamau quickly finished him off with a kick to the face as he fell.

He turned quick enough to catch the krogans hands as they came down on him, putting the both of them in a power struggle. Kamau had no doubts in his strength, but he could feel the krogan slowly overpowering him and he decided to try a very risky move he only had to do very few times before. He slackened his arms slightly and moved his right leg back behind him, the krogan, expecting full powered resistance, stumbled forward with shock in his face. Kamau quickly used the leverage his right leg was positioned in and shoved the unbalanced krogan with all his might and successfully threw him back a bit.

Enough to pull his right hand in and punch the krogan in the face, following it up with the same fist going the other way. He had read about their quick regenerating nature and hoped what he was about to do would be enough for him to finish off the krogan enough to leave the asari alone.

He snapped his arm down and as his energy blade drew, he shoved it into the krogans chest and pulled it out before slicing at his thigh and roundhouse kicking him in the face, throwing him into a metal dumpster and then slamming onto the ground groaning. Kamau turned him over a little, he was unconscious and wasn't bleeding too badly, he should be alright.

His attention snapped to the turian as he got up with a groan, Kamau snarled and the turian stumbled in fear, running into a trash bin before getting up and running. He looked around a little before deactivating his wrist blade and looking at the asari and her friend.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently glancing at the krogan one last time just to be safe, the asari doing the same as her friend roused from her unconsciousness.

"Yes. Thank you…I don't know why they were…what they were…no I guess I know what they were going to do, but it just…" she shivered and Kamau nodded and he knelt down and rested a reassuring hand on the asari's shoulder as he picked up Rya. "They just jumped out of nowhere, the krogan hit Rya so hard she just went unconscious and…well I guess you saw what happened after that," she said standing with jelly legs, catching herself on Kamau for a moment as he held Rya in his arms. She nodded after shaking her legs a bit and taking a deep breath.

"It is alright, I did not expect things to be too much different here then anywhere else, no matter where you are, no matter what your honor or name demands of you, there are those who will get the better of a female if they think they can get away with it." He looked at her for a moment as he saw her thinking about something, he looked ahead of them, "I am glad you are safe in any case, I assume the walk home did not go as planned?"

"Huh? No, not really, I got lost because we had to make out way to the transport station and the normal route was blocked and we ended up here."

Kamau nodded a little and they walked in silence for a moment before Rya decided to finally actually wake up instead of almost coming out of unconsciousness. She groaned, "Ah my freaking head," she moaned grabbing her head and looking around before looking down in surprise and looking up at Kamau. "I remember you?" she unconvinced for a moment before thinking about and smiling and placing an arm on his shoulder as he carried her. "Well big man, we heading to my apartment or something?" she asked.

"One could say, Rya," Sallie said with a snort and Rya, in shock, looked at her friend.

"Sallie, wait, what the fuck happened, why does my head hurt and why does hunk here have me in his arms?" she said pulling herself closer to his visor. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow before focusing his attention back on their pathway to the asari's homes.

"Well, you dumb-butt, you wanted to flirt with the new guys, got drunk, we got lost, you were no felt, we were jumped in an alleyway and you were punched in the face by a krogan and we were almost raped when 'hunk' here," she said with air quotes, "saved both our asses."

Rya had a strange look on her face, she puckered her lips a bit as she thought and looked at Kamau before smiling smugly and looking at the other asari, "Well hey, you agreed to come along and flirt with the new guys," she said.

Sallie visibly blushed, "That's not what matters right now!" she snapped and crossed her arms and looked away, flustered.

"Cool your jets num-nut," Rya said before fluttering her lips in boredom and resting back against Kamau's arm until she turned her attention back to him. "So you've been awfully quiet, why'd you save us?" she asked.

He looked at her, "Would you prefer I left you to most likely still be getting raped this current moment, she shifted uncomfortably in his arms and rocked her head back in thought and embarrassment. He sighed, "Apologies, I just felt like since the situation could be stopped it should have been, and it was, it's in the past now."

"Yeah…but like you said, if you hadn't stopped it that 'past' even might still be a present one," Rya said with a shiver and looked ahead. "Where are we going anyway, we've just been…you guys just seemed to have been walking aimlessly since I got up, love my company so much you want it to last as long as possible?" she joked with another smug smile.

Kamau cocked an eyebrow, "Still haven't reached the hangover stage, hm?" he asked.

"Offensive!" Rya said balling her fist in the air as she let her head hang on Kamau's arm, hers eventually falling before she sighed, "No."

Sallie laughed a girlish laugh before clearing her throat but still failing to hide her laughter, "Just make a left up ahead and we should basically be there," she said and Kamau nodded and rounded the corner.

There was a small bench next to what looked like a bus stop of some sort, he set Rya down on the bench and she sat up and stretched. Sallie sat down next to her and took off her boot and rubbed her foot a little, "And here I thought I was taking you home," Kamau said looking around with crossed arms.

"Well in a way you are, we work on the Destiny Ascension and the next transport will hopefully take us back to the docking area. Damn this is going to be one hell of a story," she said with a deep breath as she had put her boot back on and leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes a little, Rya having already fell asleep.

It wasn't too long before it was obvious Sallie had also fallen asleep, Kamau smiled a bit to himself and stood on the sidewalk with his arms still crossed as he waited for the bus to come pick them up. After about ten minutes he saw it arriving, it came to a stop in front of them and the doors opened, a human sat with confused look on his face and Kamau nodded to the two asari and nudged them up.

"Alright, I've babysat you long enough, your ride is here," he said and Sallie stirred and looked at the Sangheili in confusion before looking at the bus driver and snapping herself out of her daze and waking Rya.

When Rya got up and the two stood and stretched Sallie looked at Kamau as Rya sheepishly got onto the bus, "Thanks again," she said with a small smile and Kamau nodded.

"Try to make sure you take better care of yourself, for your own sake," he said and she nodded and got on the bus, the driver looked at him and he shook his head. The human nodded and closed the doors and the bus took off.

Kamau watched it for a minute or two before releasing a sigh and walking back to the phantom.

* * *

><p>Jack was lazily flipping the channels in the mess hall with her head resting on her fist as she felt boredom slowly destroying her mind. "Junk, junk, whiny bitch, junk, kids shit, junk. Ah! What the fuck? Junk!" she cried as she flipped the channel quickly to see a news report about a giant ship sitting outside the Citadel. "Ju-ooooo," she said mischievously as it switched to just how big the ship was as it passed the Destiny Ascension, easily two times bigger than the largest known ship to date. She began fantasizing about raiding the ship with an evil smile on her face, Garrus walked by and stopped with a strange look on his face as he looked at her.<p>

He looked at the screen and his head cocked back in surprise, then he looked back at her cautiously, "You worry me sometimes, you know that," he said but her smile just widened a little more. He whistled to himself as he scooted away back to the main battery.

The view changed to a smaller, really weird, rounded ship as it floated above the ground and deposited several figures onto the ground as some of them just decided to make the twenty-or-so foot drop and look around before following what looked like their leader. She heard the elevator open and saw Shepard walk by and look at her then the screen, he looked content about something and crossed his arms and watched the screen.

After a minute or two of watching, Shepard looked at Jack, "There's no way this is interesting to you," he said and she just kept smiling as she watched the screen. Shepard looked back and the camera changed to look at the massive ship again, "Oh I see, you really think you can take that?" he looked back at her with a smug smile.

"Course I can Shepard, has your head been up your ass lately or have you been too busy staring at the cheerleaders?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow and shook his head, "Whatever the case, we'll be at Horizon in a couple hours, make sure you're ready, I'll go tell ugly he's coming along too." She just waved a dismissive hand and he walked over to the gun battery to see Garrus watching the same thing, "You too?"

"Hey, I'm just watching it for the new guys, I'm not planning on raiding a ship two times the size of the biggest recorded ship up to this point," he said holding his hands up as if surrendering.

They both watched the screen for a minute, "They kinda remind me of turians," Shepard said curiously.

"Oh yeah? And what brought that on?" Garrus said with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well look at them, they're tall, well maybe taller than…" the aliens stopped in front of the Council and it was obvious that they were taller than even the turian Councilor. "Well…taller than turians, but they got the mandibles, the two big toes, and they seem pretty militaristic, just like turians hm…?" he said with a smile as he turned his head to Garrus.

"Come on now, that's four mandibles, not just two with a jaw bone, besides, I'm much more good looking," he said with a small bow. "And that one on the right looks more like a quarian than anything," he said pointing at the screen.

Shepard cocked an eyebrow, "I've never seen a golden quarian with armor on," he said.

"Shepard you've never seen any other quarian besides Tali and that one guy on Omega," Shepard shrugged and pointed at him.

"Fair point," he said and continued watching for another minute or two before looking back at Garrus, "We'll be at Horizon in a couple hours, planning on taking you and Jack with me," he said and Garrus nodded as he continued to watch the meeting.

"Alright, I'll get my stuff when we're almost there," he said and they sat in silence minus the sound from the video. "You think the Illusive man will think about getting you to try and get one of them?" he asked.

Shepard thought about it, "Maybe, maybe not, we're gathering a team of the best of the best, these guys are new, they haven't shown any of their skill yet. If and when they do we'll see, but in any case I'd think it would be hard to get any of them if they're all just hanging around in their ship."

Garrus just shrugged, "I don't know, they seem like they'd be able to do some damage maybe with a ship that size. Makes you wonder how they got around without us noticing sooner in the first place," he said and Shepard frowned, it was a good point and for some reason he was taken back to Omega when he thought he saw something but then that strange flashbang went off.

"In any case," Garrus said pulling Shepard back to reality, "I think we'd be good with or without them, I mean come on, I bet I can take the Collectors single-handedly if I so chose to."

"What are you going to kill them with, your rugged good looks, last I checked you caught a rocket to the face good ser."

"I'm glad you finally admitted it," he said with a grin and looked at Shepard, "Glad you're the one leading us Shepard, wouldn't have preferred anyone else…other than myself of course." They laughed and Shepard punched his arm a little before patting his shoulder and walking out, his smile hanging for a little before fading for a reason he just didn't know. Something just didn't feel right, but right now he had to worry about what was ahead, if TIM decided it was necessary to hire one of the new guys, then alright, but why didn't that sit well in his stomach.

He sighed and walked back to the elevator and pressed the button for the CIC, he may as well get ready himself, he didn't know why Cerberus was stupid enough to put the armory on the CIC instead of the cargo bay, but whatever, nothing he could do now. He leaned against the back of the elevator and rubbed his eyes, all this was putting a lot of stress on him, he really could use Liara right about now. Thankfully he had found where she was, she's an information broker on Illium according to what he had pieced together and hopefully, after this particular mission was over, he could pay her a visit. Hopefully he could find something to say to her after all this time, maybe she hadn't moved on, found someone new. He was dead for two years, he couldn't blame her, he wasn't even sure he could give her the life she wanted, him being in the Alliance and all.

He sighed and the elevator doors opened, he just stood there for a minute before pressing the button to his cabin, he just needed some alone time right now.


	12. Chapter 11

Persecution Complex Ch. 11

**AN: Alright people thank you again to any of you who have gotten this far and I thank you all for your reviews and PM's, save a couple really, but I digress. Adding onto that note I'd like to say, I am not perfect, nor will I think I will ever be until the sun goes supernova and turns us all to ash. I am well aware of how screwed the Thealon pooch is, I wanted him to be a Sangheili and feel like one, God knows where I fucked up along the way. I know I failed that, I'm trying to make up for it, I won't be able to hit that perfect Sangheili attitude that most likely literally anyone could do better than I. if you do not like my story, and I do not blame you, never will I, but if you don't like it, no one asked you to keep reading it. don't spam me with PM's every other chapter repeating the same damn thing over and over and over. I'm well aware Spartan VI's are from actual soldiers who volunteered, I'm well aware I'm not nailing a good Sangheili attitude, they're too casual, Shepard seems like a real ass, fix this, fix that. I am perfect with constructive criticism, I really am, but if you spend half an hour on a message to me telling me how you would have written the story and what you think I **_**have**_** to change according to you because you in particular don't like it, then write one yourself.**

** I'm sorry, I know I may sound like most other writers who approach this kind of thing, but I have counted how many messages I got from the same four people (names withheld). You ready, 34 messages minus the, at first, kind responses I gave to them. Alright, if you guys want my story taken down or something because it doesn't meet the perfect story requirement, sorry, you'll have to put up with me or stop reading. I will not blame anyone for not continuing to read my story, I am perfectly fine with that, I really am, while I may not necessarily be the happiest person in the world cause of it, I am fine, you win some you lose some, it's that simple. I'm letting you guys know I am actually aware of most of the things you tell me, I absorb ideas from you guys like a freaking sponge when you give them to me, I take that criticism and I try to make my story better, half of you that review I send feedback back to you guys. But I will not bend over backwards and make my story something I don't want it to be, I know it sounds stupid but I only mean with certain things. Enough of the ranting though, thank you all for listening to my rant if you did of course, thank you all for the reviews and more would be greatly appreciated. I don't expect this story to be a Clash of the Civilizations popular, but you'd be surprised how many people prejudge a story based on reviews, and who knows what kind of people we may get into this mix. Thanks again for everything everyone, and I hope you enjoy this PoS that is a story.**

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><p>Kamau had walked back to the phantom and saw the Spartans as he approached, as well as why the armored humans had not been at the ship when he and the other Sangheili had first arrived. They apparently had babysat the humans, or something, as they now herded the other humans over to the gravity lift.<p>

He approached them, "You've been busy I see, yes?" he asked looking up at the ship as the last of the humans approached the beam.

Ellenor looked at him, "Yeah, at first we were just walking around and all, but eventually we just found them and stuck around, good for them too, they might have been here longer if we hadn't helped them."

Kamau nodded and followed the Spartans aboard the ship, the lifts doors closing under him and he landed softly on the hard metal and stood as he looked around the ship. Most of the Sangheili and several humans were already fast asleep and he took care not to wake any of them as he made his way to the cockpit. He opened the door and the pilots looked back, he nodded and the human copilot gave him a thumbs up and Kamau closed the door and turned around.

He took a seat between Ellenor and a sleeping Drex, the Spartan took the rifle off her back and set it in her lap as she sat back and took a tired breath and looked at him. "So what were you up to, out so late?" she asked and Kamau felt the Phantom begin to move.

He shrugged, "Contrary to most of us, I found myself restless when we returned and felt I needed some air," he said and she nodded. "And you, seems fairly late to be returning with everyone?"

She let out a tired breath and shrugged, "Kinda like I said, Vlad, Sloan, and I were just out looking around when we found the others and just stuck around them for a while. I guess eventually they got lost and just asked us to lead them back, lucky for them too, we were going in practically the opposite direction. I guess you can say we were babysitting them too more than anything, not everyone likes humans it seems," she said and Kamau nodded.

From then on they were quiet, Kamau assumed she had fallen asleep and he too soon found the days fatigue finally setting in, the phantoms low hum lulling him to sleep. He awoke to the feeling of the phantom lowering, he blinked his eyes hard and stood as he looked among everyone, he would have to wake them.

"Everyone, up!" he shouted and everyone but a select few shot up in alarm to see him standing there, "We have arrived, you can sleep in your own bunks," he said and walked over to the lift as everyone wiped their eyes and stretched.

He waited for everyone to exit the phantom before finally following behind the pilots and walking out of the hangar. Kamau walked to the armory and checked his locker to make sure everything was there, an unnecessary task, but one he repeated every day.

When everything was accounted for he found himself not heading for the bunks, but instead toward the mess hall. He turned on a light and walked into the large dark room, pulling a chair back and taking off his helmet as he sat and setting it on the table. Despite how tired he was, he often found that no matter how tired he may be, five minutes can do him as much good as one or two hours. He pulled out his datapad that he retrieved from his locker and began to try and pass the time, reading about current and past events for this galaxy, studying places to avoid and organizations, pirate or otherwise.

His previously mentioned skill was useful when in the middle of a war zone, but that mixed with being a light sleeper made the time between missions fairly long if there was no cryo-sleep involved. Not that sleep always came as a good thing to him, he often dreamed of them, how he held them dying in his arms, how their blood stained his hands and his home smoldered around him.

Kamau jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder, jerking him from his thoughts. He looked at the small five fingered hand and followed it up the arm it belonged to before looking at Dr. Elizabeth Frey's worried face.

"Are you alright?" she asked concerned.

"Fine," he said, his voice cracking and he cleared his throat.

She frowned and looked at his datapad, "Is that your family?" she asked gently. Kamau looked down to see a picture of his wife and daughter, in his mournful state he must have subconsciously pulled the picture up. He cleared it away quickly and stared at the blank screen.

"What it should be," he said so quietly he wasn't sure she heard him, she took a seat beside him.

"How long has it been since you've seen them?" she asked quietly.

"It's been 35 years," he said just staring at his hands as he entwined his fingers together and held them in one large fist.

"That's an unhealthy amount of time to be away from them," she said worriedly.

"Were it my choice I would not let them leave my sight," he said, his voice seeming to get quieter with every sentence he spoke.

She was quiet for a long time, "Where are they?" she asked, her voice full of care.

He stared at his hands, "They are in a better place now," he said and she stiffened a little.

She paused, "Oh, I'm…I'm so sorry…how did…?" she began quietly but bit her lip and looked away.

"It is fine, loyalist killed them due to the part I played in the destruction of those gods-forsaken _sacred _rings," he snarled, "Upon the destruction of the Beta Halo I wished to return to them. But when I entered atmosphere all I saw was smoke and flame and my family, my wife, died in my arms…I hunted them down to the closest base, and killed them all with my bare hands." His breath grew hard, it came quickly, anger filled his bones and head as his hands crushed each other in their embrace.

He felt a small hand on his shoulder, "It's not your fault," Frey told him.

"Of course it is! If I had never left them, if I had never played my hand in the Halos, if had been faster…" he felt the had tighten on his shoulder as he grew angrier.

"Kamau…" he looked at her with fire in his eyes as he looked into her gentle eyes and face. "It's not your fault," she said ever the slightest and he felt a weight lift off his shoulders as his breath slowed and he realized his stupidity. He looked away slowly until he was looking at the table.

His hands found his way to his head, his claws digging into his dark skin. Gods, why could he not forget them, why, of all the things he had seen, had they done this to him. Of all the gruesome things he'd seen, of all the dead stares and faces he'd seen, why did their haunt his dreams more than the others.

He felt something on his right shoulder and something rest on his other, he looked down and saw Elizabeth hugging him, she looked him right in the eyes. "It's not your fault," she said so calmly, just as his wife had as she died in his arms, her face bleeding and her hand on his face.

Kamau looked away, "Maybe not," he said standing slowly, Frey letting go and looking at him. "But they do not deserve to be forgotten," he said grabbing his helmet and putting it on as he grabbed his datapad and walked away, heading for the bunkrooms.

Elizabeth watched him wanting to say something, holding out her hand and opening her mouth, but she remained silent and only watched him walk out of the light.

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><p>Liara opened her eyes to see nothing but the ceiling of her apartment, she had the dream again last night, the same as the one before. The one where she was aboard the Normandy when it…when Shepard…<p>

She felt something cold on her cheek and lifted her hand to her face and touched it, it felt wet, she lifted her hand and looked at her finger as a clear liquid was on its tip. She had been crying in her sleep, again. She wiped her face with her hands and sat up, swinging her legs off the bed and looking at the picture of Shepard that sat on her bedside table.

She held out her hand to touch it, but drew it back and closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath and standing up to get some clothes on as she listened to any messages she might have gotten. When everything was taken care of, fish fed, belly full, personal shield working, she walked out of her apartment and went down to her car.

And she thought all the ride to her workplace, she had gotten some news from some of her sources that Shepard was alive. The first time she had heard that her heart had skipped a beat, was it true, had Cerberus succeeded, or was it just another imposter like all the rest. She didn't trust any pictures she had gotten, she believed nothing till she saw him, and if he was alive he'd see her.

"Right?" Liara asked aloud in the emptiness of her car, even if he had died and was brought back he'd care about her, he'd want to see her. She again found herself asking herself the same thing as just a few moments before though. What if Cerberus had done something to him, what if he wasn't like he was before, or would he see what she was doing and not want her anymore. Truthfully, she hardly would appreciate what she was doing if she was him. But the Shadow Broker had to pay, and as much as she wanted to see him, she couldn't just drop what she was doing, not even for him, even if he was who he was.

Would that be all the more reason for him to leave you Liara, her conscience asked her, she felt her head hang a little, but she shook her head and gripped the wheel with renewed purpose. No, she had to do this, she had a score to settle, and one way or another it was to be settled.

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><p>Sennura watched with her camera rolling as the turian in front of the crowd that gathered pulled his arms back for one last strike on the stone with his hammer. Sennura was an asari scientist who had been an apprentice to Faigh T'Riro for about five years, together they had seen only about two Prothean ruins, but Faigh herself had seen over 50 in person over the span of her life. She had even worked with Liara T'Soni, the one girl who had been saved by Commander Shepard, for a short time.<p>

The turian let a small roar escape his throat as he brought the heavy hammer down on the rock, it finally caved in and fell into a small chamber, dust and darkness obscuring what lied ahead. The turian told the science team to stay back and he pulled out a flare and struck it, tossing it into the room, it was only probably a five foot drop, but it opened into a very large chamber behind it.

The turain deemed it safe to enter and back away so the science team could get their hands at whatever lay ahead. They hopped down one at a time and began pulled out their omni-tools to light up what was ahead of them, but the chamber was far to long and large and the beams of light only fell on darkness. But already the team set to the walls, furiously getting down notes and speaking into recorders as they studied them.

"Hey, check this out," a human called out and Sennura and Faigh walked over.

"What did you find?" Faigh asked, raising her hand to see what the human called her over for.

"Check out these symbols," he said directing their attention to where a line of strange patterned circles were. What was interesting was how they had a small glow to them whenever he brushed his hand over it.

"Strange," Faigh said fascinated, "What do you make of it?" she asked him.

"If I were to guess, this is some kind of writing system, but none like what we've seen at other ruins. Come to think of it, those were ruins, this place is so pristine and in such good shape, this isn't like anything I've ever seen before," he said incredulously as he continued to study the symbols.

Faigh looked a bit puzzled at something, "Sennura, come with me, let's see if they've carbon dated this place yet," the asari said and she nodded, following the master as she walked over to where a couple other asari were.

"What've you guys got?" she asked and the asari looking over the others shoulder looked up.

"We're testing it out now, with how in shape this place is I don't think it should be too old, I mean the most we've ever seen is ruins, but it looks like they hid this or something so I think it'd be only a little older than the usual 50,000 time stamp. Maybe 75,000 at best with the symbols we've seen, and usually the Protheans store all their data in beacons, but we've only found like, two of those, so…" she shrugged.

"Here we go," the one sampling the specimen said, "It is…100,000 years…old," she said stupefied, her jaw hanging as she stared at the machine, her friend doing the same.

Faigh scrunched her brow, "Is the equipment working right?" she asked and looked at the device.

"Hasn't failed us in the past four dig sites, don't know why it would decide to crap out on us now," one of them said and Sennura looked over as someone shouted something.

"Hey, some of the lights are kicking on, they must be motion activated!" Suddenly trails of lights began lighting up on the walls, increasing their pace until it made way to a large opening. The walls began to light up too, symbols and shapes glowed as the room grew brighter, they soon learned there was a giant chasm separating them from the entrance to the building looking place ahead of them. They all made their way over to the chasm, a small…thing stuck out of the ground, Sennura wasn't sure how to describe it, it was just a small little pedestal but instead of having a platform, it just had these two prongs.

"I don't think this is Prothean," she said walking over to the pedestal thing. She lowered her camera and suddenly it lit sparked to life, she jumped back as a board of light came up, it was blue and very oddly shaped with spinning holographic circles and one orange button in center. She tried to press the orange button but her hand just went right through it.

"Definitely not Prothean," someone said.

"I can't activate it," Sennura said and Faigh walked over and tried her hand at it, but her hand too just went through the light board.

She frowned and a human walked over and tried it, this time the orange button caused resistance, the human was shocked, but pressed down, the light button going with it. There was a rumbling sound and two long rails started from either side of the chasm and sprout out several prongs before a white light formed in a way that it connected the two parts of the chasm. They walked over and studied the light, someone grabbed a rock that had fallen and tossed it onto the light, it met resistance and bounced, before stopping on the bridge of light.

Faigh looked at everyone and lifted a foot, Sennura holding her arm just in case. She set her foot down and tensed, but nothing happened, she pressed her foot down and let go of Sennura's hand and moved her other foot onto the bridge and stood there _on_ the light.

"It's…it's solid," she said happily and laughed as she ran a hand over her head crests. She even jumped in the air a little bit and landed perfectly fine on the bridge, "See, it should be safe to cross now," she said and the others looked among themselves and followed the asari across.

"You think we should get some others?" one of the assists asked and Faigh nodded and the human ran back to fetch some other helpers and/or someone to guard them in case this place held and secrets.

"It's amazing," Faigh said with a laugh, "This place is 100,000 years old and is still in almost perfect condition." They were at the entrance of the large compound, the opening was massive and Sennura found herself with a cold chill and shook a little as a feeling went down her spine. She was okay with heights, but looking up at something massive, just felt…weird to her, that and something just felt so eerie about the place, like they shouldn't be here.

After a while of waiting their guards came up to them along with several more assistants, who were also looking like idiots with the looks on their faces and how they stumbled because they weren't looking where they were going. They explored the entrance for a long while before actually entering the place, which was only a short walk before they came to another door, much smaller than the entrance. It was of an odd shape and material like the rest of the place, they approached the door and it whooshed open to allow them into another chamber. They explored it a little bit, there were doors on either side of the chamber, but had red lights glowing on them and refused to open. They finally came across the door at the end of the room, there were two statues standing on either side of the door.

Sennura studied the figures, they looked robotic, with orange lights in certain spots of their silver-ish plating. They had large bulbous backs and big shoulders with small heads sitting oddly in between them. They had their arms crossed, one arm had what looked like some kind of rifle, same with the other statue, but the two weapon looking arms were different. The other arm, which was same for both of them, was smaller and segmented, the bottom of it glowed an ominous blue and orange.

She would have thought these were more than just decorations with how alive they seemed, along with the rest of the place, but there they sat motionless as they looked upon the research team. Again Sennura felt a strange feeling in her gut as she looked around the room to see a couple more of the statues along the top of the place where a small lip was, all completely still. She felt like she was being watched.

The rest of the team stared at the figures in awe before setting to work examining the room as the door that was guarded by these two statues also had red lights on it. After a while something just felt…wrong.

Sennura was with Faigh as they studied some of the symbols on the wall, but she felt something ping in gut and spun around and saw one of the statues had disappeared, she only caught a bluish-white light for a brief moment. She tapped Faigh's arm as she stared at the place.

"What is it Sennura I…" she began but when she turned she saw what Sennura was pointing at and her eyes widened. "Everyone," she said loudly so everyone could hear her, "Stay calm, but I think something happened to one of the statues," she said and everyone looked at the spot and then quickly looked around the room. The turians raised their rifles and swept the room, but when everyone was looking away from the statues for just a moment, there was a quiet sound and they all looked to see the other statue had disappeared.

Suddenly the sound began to repeat over and over and everyone looked up, the statues previously inanimate began vanishing right before their eyes. Suddenly something appeared behind one of the turian guards and when he spun around he was looking into the face of one of the statues. It swung its arm, now in some kind of light blade, the turian caught it with his gun and held against the creature. It moved its face close to the turians and the mask split and revealed a glowing orange human skull that roared in the turians face and swung him away. It raised its other arm and fired a shot into the turians chest, he keeled over and clutched the wound as his skin began to turn into orange petals and drift away as he fell over and his body disintegrated into the petals that soon vanished.

Everyone screamed and ran for the door as more of the things dropped down and began killing people, slashing them, disintegrating them, the shields of the turians didn't even seem to stop the things shots. Faigh spun around next to Sennura and launched a warp at one of the things, it had a blue glow to it for a second stumbled from the force of the hit, but only spun to face them and roar. It jumped into the air and extended its odd curved light weapon and was descending on them when it was hit by a powerful shot in the head and began to disintegrate, nothing but petals hit them. They turned to see a human with a sniper waving them through the door.

Sennura looked one last time at the human to see them get lifted off the ground by a light blade and shot in the air, only petals by the time they hit the ground. She felt tears sting at her eyes as her legs burned, she heard the things roaring behind them as only she and Faigh made it to the light bridge. They made it to the opening in the rocks, a turian waved them on and they pushed as hard as they could to the rocks, Faigh making it there first. She jumped up and caught the turians hand and was pulled up quickly, Sennura made the jump and caught the turians hand, she had made it, by the Goddess, she had made it.

"NO!" she heard Faigh yell and Sennura felt something hot got through her stomach and come out her back. The pain was unbelievable as she held the turians hand her strength began to fade as she felt tears stream down her face. She felt blood come out of her mouth and she began losing feeling in her body from where the pain had began, she couldn't feel her legs. Her hand held onto the turians hand weakly, but she saw a strange metal rifle come up beside her and point at the turians head, he let go of her hand and fell back as the rifle fired a bright gold shot and hit the stone where his head was a moment before. All Sennura felt was weightlessness as she didn't feel like she was falling, only getting smaller. She watched in Faigh's eyes as her own head turned into nothing but beautiful gold petals.

* * *

><p>The Phantom shook as it entered the atmosphere of the asari planet, thankfully enough for Thealon and his gang, the curved dropship had gotten a couple upgrades in its time so what would once have been a jarring experience was now nothing but a small shaking.<p>

Thealon decided to bring who he usually took with him for this one, the Spartans, Kamau, and Drex. The mission for today would be to find out who had the best intel, and who would be willing to share it with them, and as the ride smoothed out a little more, Thealon walked up the cockpit to look out over one of Illium's biggest information centers.

"Alright, shut down the stealth systems for now, we're landing here for intel that we're not trying to steal, let's make sure at least the authorities know we're here." The pilot nodded and when they had gotten everything cleared for docking procedures they landed.

Thealon stepped out into the light and looked around the clean area and stepped out of the airlock and watched as an asari with two human sized mechs came up to him, he heard everyone else file out behind him.

"Greetings Shipmaster Thealon," she said with a small bow before straightening and looking at him, "It's an honor to have you here on Illium. All your docking fees have been waived for your visit here, we hope you find what you're looking for and enjoy yourself. My name is Yira, if you need any information on the area, it would be my pleasure to assit you," she said nicely.

He nodded and bowed his head, "Thank you, Yira, I'm here looking for any information regarding ancient ruins that have been found over the past several years," he said and the asari looked puzzled.

"You're looking for Prothean ruins?" she asked confused.

"In a sense, yes," he replied and the asari pulled up her omni-tool.

"I'm not sure of any myself, but I can give you the names of several people who may have what you're looking for, some are old archeologists, they will most likely be able to assist you in your finds," she said and Thealon nodded.

He looked back and Drex pulled out his datapad and nodded, they still had yet to integrate the omni-tools they had purchased aboard the Citadel into their armors. That was more due to not getting around to it more than anything else.

"I appreciate the assistance," he said and the asari bowed again.

"Any time Shipmaster, it's my pleasure, I'd be honored to assist you in the future should you require it," she said and he nodded. The asari turned and walked to a counter where she opened a small door and walked in, "I will be here should you need me," she said and Thealon nodded as he passed the young woman. Well, young looking, from what he had studied, most asari could live to be around 1000 years old.

After they had passed Thealon turned to Drex, "So what have we got?" he asked and Drex lifted the datapad.

"The first one here is one Alexandra Reyuid, human, 38, she's studied Protheans since her high school years and for the past 10 years has been participating in dig sites as the lead scientist on the last 4 sites discovered. Detrion Rounlis, turian, 64, he has been an excavator for the past 14 years on over five different dig sites. Ferusa Trior, quarian, 24, he's currently on Pilgrimage, participating as an assistant for over five years hoping to find tech in any of the ruins he can take back to the fleet, he's seen over 20 dig sites. Liara T'Soni, asari, 108, she's studied the Protheans for a majority of her life and has been the lead scientist for over 15 dig sites, though has seen over 30 in person. Parriah D'Touse, asari, 341, she's studied Protheans for over 200 years, has written several books on the dig sites and their variety and culture, and has visited over 100 dig sites in person."

Thealon listened but those first couple seemed to have been their best bet, "Where are the locations of those four after Alexander Reyuid, which is the closest?" he asked when Drex was finished.

"The closest would be Detrion Rounlis, the turian, he was last seen in a bar not far from here, from there the quarian followed by D'Touse would be the closest followed by T'Soni." He gave Thealon the datapad and he looked over the last know locations and nodded.

"Alright, Vlad and I will go check D'Touse and go to T'Soni afterwards, Drex and Ellenor go talk to the quarian, Sloan and Kamau, talk to the turian, see if he could be of any use." They all nodded knowing their tasks, "Alright, we'll meet here," he said marking a spot on their maps, "We should cross paths about here," he said marking the spot, "anyway if we follow close routes. Any questions?" everyone looked among each other but no one said anything, "Good. Good luck all of you," he said and they all nodded and went about their assigned tasks.

* * *

><p>Liara sat in her office as she read a couple of her emails, nothing that didn't surprise her summed up everything in her inbox. She was about to go about another task when she got a new email from one of her old friend Faigh T'Riro, it was strange to hear from her again after all these years. It was titled 'Urgent', she frowned and opened the message, she quickly read it and her eyes widened.<p>

_Liara,_

_ I pray to the Goddess this email works, I don't what to do, but with you being close to Shepard and with him being back from the dead or something I need help now! We found these ruins, like nothing we've ever seen before, they were carbon-dated to be over 100,000 years old, older than the oldest Prothean ruin and used technology far beyond anything capable for them at what would have been that time for them. It wasn't even a blasted ruin, it was like a freaking temple in all its glory._

_ We got in, we studied for a while but we eventually we got to this chamber where all the other doors were locked and there were these strange statues. When no one was looking, one of them vanished and my apprentice tugged on my arm, before I knew it the things were alive, they killed everyone! Liara I need your help, the things decided to stay away from the entrance into the place, but I only have ten more guards and those things killed more then 25 people, 5 of them being guards and none of them lasted more then a minute. There's only a couple of us left Liara and I'm scared, but I don't want to just leave and let some other poor soul stumble in there._

_ Please help us, I don't know who else to turn to because no one else believes us. If we don't get any help soon the guards said they'll have to go down there and try and take care of those **things**. Liara they won't stand a chance, it'll be a suicide mission, I saw them kill my apprentice right before my eyes, my team, it was…terrible. Please help us…please._

_ Faigh T'Riro_

She stared at the message, _older than the oldest Prothean ruin_, she felt her archeologist flame kick in, but she put it out quickly. They needed help, but what could she do, she didn't know where Shepard was, she wasn't a one woman army. But she replied.

_Faigh,_

_ I…I don't know how I can help, I don't know where Shepard is, but I promise I'll try and get help. Just hang in there, make sure those guards don't go down there, I'll update you when I get something._

_ Liara T'Soni_

She surveyed the message quickly and sent it before falling back in her chair and placing a hand to her head. Goddess, she didn't know what to do, maybe she could hire a small army to help them, but that would cost valuable resources she may need for the Shadow Broker.

Her terminal pinged again and she looked at the message, someone had landed and was possibly going to pay her a visit, Shepard? She read it fully, it was the new-comers to the Citadel, she had watched their introduction to the council just the other day in her apartment, everyone had. What did they want with…the were looking for prothean ruins, or people who had worked at dig sites and wanted intel on something about them. It was interesting to say the least, but they had been given a list of people, the chances of them visiting her was slim at best.

Before she had a chance to do anything, her terminal pinged again, "What is it this time?" she asked a bit frustrated, not that she wasn't intrigued with the messages she had just received, but time was of the essence and it was important she got to what she had to do. The _Normandy_ had just entered atmosphere, that meant… "Shepard," she breathed and quickly informed the dock workers that all fees were to be waived for him.

She sat back again, Goddess it was a busy day, well now it was time to get down to business, hopefully if Shepard needed to see her he could wait a minute or two.

* * *

><p>Jason Massionis sat with a couple asari playing poker in their Eclipse armor and he in his as he sat with a majority of the winnings on his side of the table. He wasn't too high up in the chain of command, only a squad leader, but right now his squad was off getting high off of red sand so he just decided to play a little poker with some of the ladies.<p>

His omni-tool buzzed, "'Scuse me ladies," he said and a couple of them crossed their arms while they waited. He activated his earpiece, "Jason here, who do you want dead?" he asked kicking his feet up on one of the asari's laps, he winked but she gave him the finger and slapped his feet away.

"Name's Detrion," a rough, slightly slurred voice spoke, "I got this human and really big guy buggin' me about things they should stay outta. They got this weird armor and shit, and the big one, like the really big one, looks like a really big golden quarian, but I don't know if that's just the drinks. Or that asari babe that decked me," he said confused and Jason stifled a laugh at the drunk turian, he could tell by the voice, slurred or not, it was turian.

"Alright and what do you have to offer?" he asked taking out a toothpick and picking his teeth.

"500,000 credits," he said, "And the location of some cover-up prothean tech," he said and Jason debated.

"How 'bout I call you back after I contact my superiors, eh buddy?" he asked and heard a hiccup.

"Uh, okay," he said stupidly and ended the call.

"One more moment or two ladies, might have a hit case," he said and they high-fived, cover-up shit and red sand smuggling got old after a while, assassination missions were few and far between but often pretty good.

"Yo bay-bay, you there," he asked calling his superior, "We got a turian who wants two guys dead, one's a human in strange armor and the other's a buff looking quarian in gold armor…Yeah I can be more specific if the drunk was, but considering they're supposed to be buddies I'm sure the quarian dude will stand out…Yeah, 500,000 and some hidden prothean tech…You got it ma'am." He ended the call with the asari and called the turian back, "You gotta deal my front, pay up-front so we can verify the locations and you can consider those two dead," he said with a smile. Gosh he just loved his job.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Apologies for the rant at the beginning and all, half of you guys can vouch for the fact i usually reply to your messages in a nice fashion and just ask you what you guys think of it so far and all. I really want to keep this story and for it to be liked so I do try and change it to what you guys would prefer and suggest, but some things i just can't do without making it something i don't want it to be. this is a fairly canonical story that still has it's own twist to keep it unique and all. i know this story i pretty bad, i am well aware, but you know, i am always just so anxious to write this story sometimes i just can't think of anything else but furthering it, so you'll have to put up with me. Birthday is the 25th and hope to maybe dish out a chapter or two before then because school is starting Thursday and all so it'll be a bit harder from here on to get these out. also i know that i'm probably gonna lose a couple of you for the whole promethean ambush and all, but you know, i have something i think is cool planned out for that, so if you're interested i promise i will try and make this story to the best i can...which isn't much but, ya know, it's something i guess, i got a couple of you guys after all ;3. <strong>

**As per usual, thanks for getting this far if you have, hopefully you've been able to stomach the atrocity, if you guys wouldn't mind leaving a review i'd greatly appreciate it, saying how good or bad it is will help improve the story a bit, at least i'll try to help it improve a bit, and maybe leave your thoughts or what not too. thanks again so much guys, you guys are awesome and i hope to hear from some of you.  
><strong>


	13. A note

A note:

Hello everyone following all my stories, old and new. I want to apologize as this won't be an actual update to any of my stories but news of a great tragedy, to myself at least. My computer had contracted a virus, how, where, or when I don't know, and it was a pretty bad one. Needless to say I had to bring my laptop in because the thing wouldn't even turn on anymore. When I did that, a few minutes later the guy calls me and tells me that he had to completely reconstruct my hard drive and wanted to let me know I would probably lose some stuff. Needless to say, I lost everything but a couple of my documents, a good majority of them being lost.

So to tell you all, I was actually planning on updating all my stories all at once when this happened. I know a lot of people have been waiting for updates for a very long time and I apologize, but at this point I don't even know what to do but start anew. For everyone wondering, the only salvaged documents were for a story I hadn't posted yet, all of _The Abyssal_ documents, some of the _Persecution Complex_ documents and honestly not much else. A couple of them had documents with chapters I was almost done with or had edited, but every new thing that had been added or any of said edits were replaced by lengthy amounts of rectangles and errors. It was pretty bad. That and for some reason one of my already posted stories deleted itself and with its document gone, I don't know what to do.

To say I've about lost my spark for those stories is pretty accurate. I know I must sound pathetic right now, but you people also have to understand how much of my life I've put into writing and to have it all just disappear like it never mattered is…it leaves a pretty empty feeling inside. So, uh…I don't know what to say really. It might be a while until I update some of my already written stories but for some reason I've been having an urge to write a new/couple new stories after reading quite a few truly good ones on fanfiction.

I guess this might be the end for some stories, I apologize, but right now a new story, The Abyssal, and maybe Persecution Complex are on my mind at the moment. I'm sorry everyone, I really am, but I just don't know what to do.

With that, I hope you guys have enjoyed my stories for what they have been. Thank you, all of you who have supported me and my stories and wish you all a great day/night. See ya guys, it's been fun.

~Reaper81609


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